NZ Government Home page web performance audit
This part II of my audit of New Zealand Homepages (Part I looked at the top 75 homepages in New Zealand).
I have conduct an audit of 320 Government websites looking at their web performance. The audit was conducted by using YSlow to analyse the download performance of the homepage of a Government website. The list of government websites was taken from the New Zealand Government website. Full results are available from this Google Spreadsheet. Audit conducted on Tuesday Night 20th May 2008.
Audit Findings
Homepage Size
Graph of NZ Government Home page sizes
(Click on the graph to view values)
- The average homepage size was 216.85K (Compared to 304.5K for top 75 NZ websites) The largest Homepage was staggering 2442K and the smallest homepage was 8.3K,
Web Compression
Graph of Web compression usage on Government webpages
- 84.1% of Government homepages were not compressed, 11.6% are compressing some of the page elements and only 4.4% (14 sites) are fully compressing their pages.
- Some sites are compressing only CSS and JS files but NOT their base HTML
- A lot of sites have compression external javascript eg. Google Analytics (which was discounted as being part of the site) This highlights that all external javascript should be compressed.
Other findings
- The worst site had 151 files for their homepage and the best site 3 files
- The worst offending pages had over 21 Javscript files and the worst offender for the number of CSS files was 40.
- Some sites have duplicate versions of scripts running. One site had 4 Google analytic scripts running.
Tables
Top 10 best Government homepages ranked by YSlow
| Website | Ranking | Total Size (Kilobytes) | Total Files | # of Javascript files | # of CSS files | Etags Rating | Web Compression | Estimated Download time modem @6k/s |
| http://www.swrb.org.nz | 92 | 23.3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | C | None | 3.88 |
| http://www.mstn.govt.nz | 87 | 65.5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | D | None | 10.92 |
| http://www.nzaid.govt.nz/ | 87 | 165.5 | 24 | 3 | 2 | A | YES | 27.58 |
| http://www.nzrefugeeappeals.govt.nz | 87 | 18.1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | D | None | 3.02 |
| http://www.pco.parliament.govt.nz/ | 87 | 32.7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | D | None | 5.45 |
| http://www.corrections.govt.nz | 84 | 100.8 | 14 | 0 | 2 | B | None | 16.80 |
| http://www.paroleboard.govt.nz/ | 82 | 32.9 | 9 | 2 | 3 | A | None | 5.48 |
| http://www.residencereviewboard.govt.nz | 82 | 20.2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | F | None | 3.37 |
| http://www.gamblingcom.govt.nz/ | 81 | 22.4 | 6 | 0 | 2 | A | None | 3.73 |
| http://www.cpit.ac.nz | 80 | 32.7 | 5 | 1 | 0 | A | None | 5.45 |
Top 10 worst Government homepages ranked by YSlow
| Website | Ranking | Total Size (Kilobytes) | Total Files | # of Javascript files | # of CSS files | Etags Rating | Web Compression | Estimated Download time modem @6k/s |
| http://www.sparc.org.nz | 31 | 420 | 77 | 21 | 15 | F | None | 70.00 |
| http://www.airforce.mil.nz/ | 34 | 181.2 | 52 | 6 | 9 | F | None | 30.20 |
| http://www.med.govt.nz | 35 | 298.8 | 88 | 3 | 40 | F | None | 49.80 |
| http://www.tauranga.govt.nz/ | 35 | 393.6 | 46 | 16 | 12 | F | None | 65.60 |
| http://www.lincoln.ac.nz | 37 | 172.4 | 42 | 4 | 14 | F | None | 28.73 |
| http://www.manukau.govt.nz | 38 | 198.8 | 48 | 10 | 5 | F | None | 33.13 |
| http://www.northshorecity.govt.nz/ | 38 | 310.2 | 47 | 13 | 5 | F | None | 51.70 |
| http://www.wintec.ac.nz | 38 | 567.1 | 74 | 5 | 10 | F | None | 94.52 |
| http://www.hnzc.co.nz/ | 39 | 147.8 | 69 | 9 | 16 | A | Some | 24.63 |
| http://www.tourisminfo.govt.nz/ | 39 | 325.8 | 37 | 12 | 6 | F | None | 54.30 |
Top 10 smallest Government homepages by size
| Website | Ranking | Total Size (Kilobytes) | Total Files | # of Javascript files | # of CSS files | Etags Rating | Web Compression | Estimated Download time modem @6k/s |
| http://www.asure.co.nz | 79 | 8.3 | 7 | 0 | 1 | F | None | 1.38 |
| http://www.nzrefugeeappeals.govt.nz | 87 | 18.1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | D | None | 3.02 |
| http://www.residencereviewboard.govt.nz | 82 | 20.2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | F | None | 3.37 |
| http://www.roadsafety.govt.nz | 76 | 20.9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | F | None | 3.48 |
| http://www.gamblingcom.govt.nz/ | 81 | 22.4 | 6 | 0 | 2 | A | None | 3.73 |
| http://www.swrb.org.nz | 92 | 23.3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | C | None | 3.88 |
| http://www.takeovers.govt.nz | 68 | 23.9 | 31 | 0 | 0 | F | None | 3.98 |
| http://www.cpit.ac.nz | 80 | 32.7 | 5 | 1 | 0 | A | None | 5.45 |
| http://www.pco.parliament.govt.nz/ | 87 | 32.7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | D | None | 5.45 |
| http://www.paroleboard.govt.nz/ | 82 | 32.9 | 9 | 2 | 3 | A | None | 5.48 |
Top 10 largest Government homepages by size
| Website | Ranking | Total Size (Kilobytes) | Total Files | # of Javascript files | # of CSS files | Etags Rating | Web Compression | Estimated Download time modem @6k/s |
| http://www.taipoutini.ac.nz/taipoutini/ | 63 | 2442 | 20 | 1 | 1 | F | None | 407.00 |
| http://www.maoritelevision.com/ | 53 | 2353 | 44 | 3 | 5 | F | None | 392.17 |
| http://www.selwyn.govt.nz/ | 64 | 1906 | 151 | 0 | 1 | F | None | 317.67 |
| http://www.kordiasolutions.com | 56 | 1530 | 32 | 3 | 4 | F | Some | 255.00 |
| http://www.tematatini.org.nz/ | 64 | 1209.6 | 12 | 2 | 1 | F | None | 201.60 |
| http://www.drugfreesport.org.nz/ | 66 | 1009.7 | 40 | 4 | 2 | A | Some | 168.28 |
| http://www.horizons.govt.nz | 55 | 971.3 | 42 | 1 | 2 | F | None | 161.88 |
| http://www.nzonair.govt.nz | 66 | 886.2 | 68 | 2 | 2 | F | YES | 147.70 |
| http://www.transpower.co.nz/ | 43 | 799.7 | 36 | 10 | 5 | F | None | 133.28 |
| http://www.hbrc.govt.nz | 47 | 762.5 | 40 | 5 | 5 | F | None | 127.08 |
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
[…] This post is Part of a web performance audit of New Zealand homepages. (Part II looks at Government homepages.) […]