The public increasingly expects digital interactions with government on par with their favorite consumer websites and mobile apps. More than ever, digital experience is central to the government’s ability to serve the American people.
To meet this expectation, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released guidance in September 2023 on Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience (M-23-22), setting a bold vision and clear requirements for how Federal agencies serve their customers digitally.
Since then, OMB and partners across government have worked to build a strong foundation to enable delivery, including key metrics for website performance. This page presents a snapshot of current metrics, where there is room to improve, and where progress has already been made.
The Federal Government's Web Presence
New visibility into the Federal government’s web presence reveals a vast ecosystem and a small portion of websites that drives the bulk of user traffic.
OMB M-23-22 facilitated the development of a comprehensive inventory of public-facing websites across the executive branch, which will evolve as agencies continue to update their individual inventories. Then, by driving usage of the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) provided by the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, OMB was able to access user traffic and engagement data for many of these websites. This new visibility reveals opportunities to streamline digital delivery within and across agencies, because the Federal government’s customers should not have to navigate numerous sites to find the information they are looking for.
Websites only include .gov and .mil top-level domains for the executive branch, and are identified by the second-level domain (e.g., agency.gov) or subdomain (e.g., program.agency.gov). Pageviews are calculated as averages across 6 months.
Current Website Performance
Federal government websites have room to improve across foundational digital delivery expectations.
The categories and underlying metrics below represent critical components of good digital delivery and contribute to positive customer experiences. For example, with over half of all traffic to Federal websites coming from mobile devices, mobile-friendliness has become an imperative. Since the most common entry to Federal websites is by way of search engines, search optimization is essential. Because over 60 million U.S. adults are living with a disability, accessibility is vitally important.
Aggregate percentages are based on meeting all of the metrics within a given category. For each category, a small portion of websites may not be able to be scanned. Individual category percentages are based on websites that were successfully scanned. Site Scanning capabilities for all metrics currently only cover website homepages and not interior pages.
Leveraging capabilities from the Site Scanning program at the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services and the Cyber Hygiene program at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, OMB assessed a range of foundational metrics. Alongside other efforts to measure government-wide customer and digital experience, including measuring trust in major government service providers, these metrics help the Federal government to identify and address some of its customers’ most pressing pain points.
Higher-traffic websites perform better.
Better performance across the most visited websites demonstrates the government’s success in delivering better experiences for the most people, but there is still room to improve. Integrating data from the Digital Analytics and Site Scanning programs reveals where performance gaps exist relative to user traffic. This information helps inform agency prioritization so that they can make the best use of digital experience resources.
Continued Website Improvement
Over half of all websites improved on performance metrics over the last year.
Each of these improvements is a big step towards a digital experience that meets customer needs and expectations. Taken together, they reflect continued progress delivered by web and digital teams across government. This significant progress—in just one year and across a broad range of metrics and web properties—speaks to the positive change that is possible through clear policy guidance and coordinated implementation.
Websites with improvements receive over a billion pageviews each month.
These improvements benefit the many users that visit and rely on government websites for critical information or services on a regular basis. Over a billion pageviews, from millions of members of the public: the potential for impact at scale from improved digital delivery is immense.
Pageviews are calculated as averages across 6 months.
For questions or comments about this page, contact the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer at OFCIO.DigitalExperience@omb.eop.gov.
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