To create the survey rankings, site checks are run during the month of the published report - the timings changes regularly as historically we have seen site owners tweak "their" site knowing when the tests were being performed.

The exact date the published report was run can be found on the statistics tab of a report, together with the total URLs examined and tests conducted.

We have added a new "Surveys" tab to the Sitemorse secure site. This is intended to provide quick and convenient access to the Sitemorse surveys that we produce on a regular basis.

The Surveys page displays the complete list of public survey categories that we produce (for example, "Central Government" or "FTSE 100"). By each category is shown the most recent survey report, and a list of any sites shown on your "Site List" page which are included in that survey category.

To view the summary report for a survey, click its entry under the "Latest report" column. Summary reports are always available; if you have a current testing contract relating to a site which is included in a survey category, then you will see the full survey detail instead.

Website managers or site owners can obtain their site summary at no charge. For existing Sitemorse clients the reports are automatically transferred to your account one month after the survey takes place.

When viewing the survey click the statistical tab to view the date the rankings took place.

Web managers who are not clients of Sitemorse should contact sales (telephone 0870 759 3377 or email sales@sitemorse.com) to receive the free site summary.

Surveys check the top 125 pages of each website, Sitemorse measures performance, tests functions and checks compliance (HTML/eGMS/Accessibility) thoroughly on each of the tested page, and then ranks the site based on the weighting detailed further below:

• Function

  Testing how well will the website function for a user, examples of the tests include checking if there any broken links or missing downloads, illegal characters used, DNS issues or emails that will not work.

• Code Quality

  Thoroughly checking the build (HTML) code of the site and checking against the recognised web standards (poor website code can hamper performance and cause serious display issues)

• Accessibility

  Based on the available tests that can be carried out automatically on a site, e.g. is there an ‘ALT’ text tab on the images to allow screen readers to advise a visually impaired user to be told about the image, we are testing the site for both A & AA compliance reporting on page failures.

• Performance

  Checking the ability of the servers to react to page requests and look at your ability to manage pages deliver – not just on one page but we report the average performance across the site – providing a valuable indication of the experience a site visitor would receive.

In this report we do not comment on any measure of site sensitivity, popularity, ease-of-use, effectiveness or the commercial objectives, considerations and constraints, which may have been applied to site direction, development, design and performance criteria.

Full description of Sitemorse™ Benchmark Ratings

Sitemorse tests the domain name listed under "site address". Occasionally if the majority of the site is hosted on a sub domain we will include this address when testing your site.

For instance, take the domain 'example.com'. Should visitors to this site be immediately redirected to 'public.example.com' a Sitemorse Survey would include the sub domain of the site. The same process is applied even if the redirection takes place within a frame - a method used to disguise the true URL from the visitor.

Alternatively, should 'example.com' redirect to 'example.org' - a separate domain name - we will endeavour to update the site address and survey this new domain in future. For some organisations determining the "default" or "primary" site can be difficult. Wherever possible Sitemorse uses the email addresses and metadata to determine the proper site to Survey for an organisation.

Survey results are based upon a single test run during the period stated. As the date of the test is unannounced there are occasionally discrepancies between the two tests. For example if an external site times out, html errors exist or your site is under heavy load the Sitemorse marks may drop.

Sitemorse customers with sites listed in a survey will receive the full report in their account some weeks after publication.

The selection of sites to include in a particular sector survey is compiled from a number of sources.

Where a specific governing body exists, such as the publication of the FTSE 100 / 250 constituents and Fortune 100 rankings, we update our database prior to each survey.

Traditionally the Fortune 500 list is published in April of each year, thus our May Fortune survey matches the latest list of companies.