Major upward movements have seen Land Securities and communications giant WPP top our Q1 online benchmark of the UK London-listed PLCs in 2014, with high scores showing a clear lead in online governance.

With digital performance being increasingly seen as a key measure of overall governance across any organisation, online capability and INDEX ranking could soon potentially be as important as that of the ratings agencies, with even the largest corporations needing to ensure they can successfully manage brand and reputation online, in a constantly changing environment.

With 70 years of history, Land Securities is now the largest commercial property company in the UK, and with a significant London property portfolio can justifiably claim to be reshaping one of the world’s great cities. We scored the Land Securities online presence at just over 9.4 of a possible ten marks, as near a perfect score as ever achieved, and the site moves 59 places up our table to take the top spot.

WPP, led by the charismatic Sir Martin Sorrell is a world leader in marketing communications and the largest advertising agency in the world, employing more than 160,000 people. Founded in 1971 as a manufacturer of wire shopping baskets, the company now owns some of the best-known marketing and PR agencies. WPP PLC’s site rises 49 places in our ranking with an overall score of just under 9/10. The remainder of our top 5 rated companies includes independent pub retailing business Marston’s, newsagent WH Smith, and the North-West water company, United Utilities.

A new site from spirits specialist Stock Spirits has entered the ranking in seventh place. The group's principal markets are Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy, and it aims to be the leading spirits producer in Central and Eastern Europe. Global investment managers Baillie Gifford trust are in tenth place after a rise of 72 places up the table.

Our top digital leaders includes some well-known names – housebuilders Bellway, iconic entertainment name Rank Group, Premier Oil PLC, a growing FTSE 250 oil and gas exploration and production company, and electronics manufacturer Pace PLC, supplying broadcast and broadband industries maintaining 19th position overall.

• The Sitemorse UK London-listed PLCs Benchmark INDEX, including more than 500 UK top company sites is a particularly important audit. Our automated checks, covering quality, user experience, accessibility, performance and search engine optimisation, provide a useful marker for which of the leading companies in this sector is succeeding online.

There were some big upward movements this Index from engineering consultants AMEC PLC (up245), asset investors GCP Infrastructure Investments Limited (+249 places to 57th overall), life and pensions books manager Chesnara PLC (+267), independent investment manager Invesco Income Growth Trust PLC (+352) and top riser, international energy giant Bg Group PLC (rising 388places to overall 20th).

• Fast-loading web pages are important, so our rankings include the average response time we recorded when testing each site. A response time above 0.75 seconds can have a negative effect on user experience. Insurers Admiral Group, Rentokil Initial Whitbread PLC and Royal Mail are among the top performers here, with average response times just 0.01 seconds on average for a tested page to load.

• Accessibility, backed by law, remains a key criterion for any website. Land Securities, WPP, Marston’s and Tobacco manufacturer BAT are the top performers here, all with nine of a possible ten marks. Imperial Tobacco Group ,Bellway and Stock Spirits Group PLC scored 8/10.

About the INDEX
The quarterly INDEX Review, powered by the Sitemorse software platform, is an important independent benchmark that clearly shows how websites are performing, meeting compliance levels and satisfying their users. It’s also a key indicator for site managers who, while always wanting to be at the top of their game, could be hampered by poor-performing suppliers, non-compliant legacy content or content management systems that often fail to spot errors affecting user experience.
Sitemorse services such as Governisation and the Web Management Toolkit immediately find the issues that affect web users the most on any site, help demonstrate real improvement and ensure you have control and confidence in your digital landscape.

They will help you minimise unnecessary risk, issues covering everything from compliance with web standards to helping you deal with malware, protect your brand across even a large web presence, and enhance search engine optimisation to help more potential customers find you. They can help spotlight content that may need updating, issues with staff training and support, and focus supplier management. We offer a confidential internal 'company wide' site testing and benchmarking service - allowing you to review the position of all the sites in your organisation.

Contact us to request further details and / or an example.

More information

• More information about our surveys and what they test can be found on our website http://www.sitemorse.com/index/