Top of the league and best site overall was Aylesbury Vale DC, in second place East Dorset DC, lasts months top site came in 3rd. At the bottom of the table representing the poorest site overall was Corby in the Website Benchmark.

Overall one of the best performing sites, was High Wycombe moving from 401st to 15th place, both the council and the site developers benefiting from the Sitemorse™ report.

What did Wycombe DC say?
"We are delighted to hear that there has been such a significant improvement in the performance of Wycombe District Council website. It is always disappointing to learn that you are bottom of the pile but very satisfying when the situation is rectified. We take accessibility issues very seriously and worked closely with VLI to ensure that the site was improved."

VLI’s comments on Sitemorse™?
"As developers for Wycombe District Council we were very disappointed to learn of the site's poor performance in the Sitemorse report. After consulting with Sitemorse and viewing the report in closer detail, it was clear to see where the site was falling short in terms of the set criteria. We quickly set about rectifying this, which was a simple task given the informative nature of the Sitemorse report. As a company we are very aware of functional and performance requirements and are always keen to maintain our sites to the highest possible standards. The Sitemorse report has helped us in this process."

Overall the improvement trend continues, with the number of errors across sites reducing still. We have included the previous reports data in the table showing sites with over 1,000 errors, demonstrating the reductions in errors across sites.

- One site is error free this month – well done Wakefield [another Sitemorse™ user]. Same sites dominate the table with most errors Liverpool and Brighton-Hove.

- 24 sites that had over 1,000 errors; the majority of those with over 1,000 reported errors encouragingly have reduced their overall total errors.

- 284 sites tested passed basic meta data test for their front page [an improvement from last report] – with 181 failing, these sites going against the government standard ‘EGMS’, along with causing sites unnecessary problems.

- 84 of the sites tested passed all basic speed tests, looking at first page download, simulated as being viewed by a home [56k], ADSL [512k] and user with corporate access [1mb].

- Site with the lowest number of warnings was again Tynedale with a total of 4 [also lowest last time and showing improvements]; Charnwood BC had the highest with over 215,000 [much higher than last months worst performer Fife – 93,000].

- Site with fastest overall server response was Tendring DC, average page response was 0.096 seconds. The site with the slowest response time was Redditch BC where average page response was over 32 seconds per page.

- Site with highest download speed was Tendring DC [with many sites showing improvements], and Crawley had the slowest download speed of sites tested for the 3rd time running.

The findings take into account the site size; e.g. a website with 10 pages and 1 error would score the same as a website with 100 pages and 10 errors – both having page/error ratio of 10:1

Tests were completed during the first week of Sept ’03, a free copy of your own site summary is available on request.

The next tests will be run on the 4th October 2003; the next report will be produced around the 15th October 2003.

The management of websites can be a problem for all web teams, in house or external. There can be many levels of access and update to the site, on an ongoing basis - testing every possible page combination after every change is not practical or in most cases possible - the job is also made more difficult with the many possible hardware, software, and connectivity combinations site visitors utilise.

Using Sitemorse™, your website function and HTML compliance is thoroughly tested along with a speed measurement taken for every page of the site - the detailed reports identify any problems that need to be addressed.

About VLI
The philosophy of VLI is one of support and partnership. By customising our services to the individual requirements of our clients we are able to offer a highly customised approach. We support the vast majority of our clients long term and have worked with a number of core clients since our formation.

VLI have a five-year track record of supply of customised computer graphics and multimedia services for a wide range of clients. We have provided Internet services for business customers since early 1996, and have developed as a company in parallel with the Internet itself. We have invested intellectually and financially in the development and research of our services to ensure that we remain at the innovative end of the market, and are able to deliver a complete range of leading edge services to our clients.

Originally based in Henley-on-Thames, VLI has worked out of Reigate since 1998. The company was founded by Will and James Hodgkinson in 1995.