There are a myriad of rules around financial services industry compliance, involving regulations that require companies to make certain information available on their websites, which can be a problem when a third-party changes the location of the data and causes a broken link.

The big issue for companies, therefore, is to ensure that all their many connections to external organisations actually lead to the relevant information and are not simply broken links. This is difficult because not only are there many such links to external parties but they are frequently moved, and companies are never told about such changes.

Our client, one of the UK’s largest financial institutions recognised this problem and the tough challenge involved in finding these failed links among the thousands of pages that make up its digital estate. They turned to Sitemorse, which has enabled them to automate the process. They continuously undertake site assessments that allow them to keep on top of managing their digital landscapes.

The client’s digital quality manager says: “We run monthly audits [with Sitemorse] that spider all of our key sites. There would be issues we’re not aware of without being able to automate the process. It is like having a bank of testers working for you. We simply wouldn’t be able to do it based on the workload we already have.”

It is impractical to try to undertake such a task manually as there are hundreds of links that need to be checked. These might link to other web pages, PowerPoint presentations or PDFs. The reality is, websites are complex and they rely on many other third-parties.

They continue by saying that Sitemorse invariably highlights a wide variety of issues and because it is on top of the latest Google guidance on search criteria and other industry activities its assessments provide plenty of actionable insight: “It throws up things that are serious and others that are not so much so, which means we can prioritise.”

Among the most serious issues Sitemorse highlights are those related to financial services industry compliance. Operating within this sector, the organisation has the responsibility to provide the relevant regulatory information to its customer, which often requires its websites to link to third-parties.

“If the links are not working then we might not be compliant. Third-parties change things all the time. It could be just one part of the path that has changed but this will mean that our links will struggle to find the right data,” she says.

Some of these links are to the financial services regulatory body itself and Sitemorse has found a number of them to be broken when it has undertaken its assessments. The regulator sometimes moves essential documentation to a different location with the result that many of its members will then have broken links.

In such instances the regulator might be unaware of the implications of its actions. But what it actually means is that it will have inadvertently prompted some of its members to be non-compliant because they are then not making essential data available on their sites as a result of these broken links.

Because they undertake automated assessments of their sites they are able to spot these broken links and thereby ensure the site remains compliant. Being effectively one step ahead of the regulator clearly highlights that it is very much on top of keeping its digital assets fully up to date and compliant with all the necessary regulatory requirements.

Being compliant is absolutely critical to them because they explain as ultimately it can result in them securing more business: “We could easily lose a sale if our customers are not confident when using our site. Being non-compliant could have a big impact and so we want to be compliant and maintain the confidence of our customers.”