10 Apr 2003
Sitemorse™ ran an automated test of 55 of the leading sites. Of the 55 sites tested, only one (Local E-Government) was error-free, over half (29) had over 100 errors, and 10 had over 500.
Overall the worst site was E-Venturing, followed by that of HM Treasury with over 6,000 errors. Other sites which performed poorly were the Office of National Statistics, the Department of Health, perhaps most worryingly the Department of Trade & Industry (which has thousands of broken links alone) and a number of sites focused specifically on On-Line Development: Trade Partners, UK On-Line for Business and E-Venturing.
Some sites were extremely impressive, The Equal Opportunities Commission, Local E-Government and the Child Support Agency topped the League Table, with the Department of Culture, Heritage and Support leading the 'Cabinet Minister' sites. Of the 'On-Line specialist' sites, the Office of the E-Envoy also performed well.
The average UK corporate website when tested by B2W had 85 errors; the government average was 600 - nearly 7 times as many. The number of site warnings was also significantly higher, and servers were slower. Calculated Download Speed was, however, faster than the FTSE 100 average.
No less than 42 of the 55 sites (80%) failed the metadata test, which is broadly in line with the requirements now being developed as a key government site standard (EGMS).