Years of decentralized efforts by federal agencies to share information using the World Wide Web have resulted in a tangle of thousands of government websites, a fifth of which are no longer in use, according to a new government report.
The new “State of the Federal Web Report,” released Dec. 16 by a government task force, represents the first comprehensive review of federal websites, following the Obama administration conclusion earlier this year that there were simply too many government websites.
This report presents a summary of data and findings about the state of Federal websites, collected as part of the .gov Reform Initiative. The report is intended to highlight-for the first time-the size and scope of websites in the Federal Executive Branch, how agencies are managing them, and opportunities for improvement.
Though not a comprehensive assessment of every Federal Executive Branch website, this data provides a high-level overview and is the first step to more effectively collecting data to make better decisions about our Federal web operations.
The .gov Reform Task Force and its partners will use this data to develop a Federal Web Strategy and create tools, best practices, and other resources that will make Federal websites more efficient and useful for citizens. This report includes data that was collected between August and October, 2011:
.gov Web Inventory: Agencies completed a baseline inventory to determine the number and status of domains and websites in the Federal Executive Branch.
Web Governance Survey: Major agencies provided baseline data about the state of web governance across their organizations and identified opportunities to improve the customer experience and more efficiently manage web operations.
Web Improvement Plans: Agencies posted their initial web improvement plans to help identify where they can streamline web operations and improve customer service. Agencies will be required to update these plans in Spring 2012 after release of the Federal Web Strategy.
National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites: Many experts, innovators, citizens, and federal employees held an online conversation, where they submitted and voted on ideas