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Summary
How do the WebSites of the Top 10 Commercial Banks
within the Fortune 500 compare
in terms of Best Online Experience?
Goals
For this comparative analysis of websites
we define two important dimensions that allow us to
rank order each website in terms of Best Online Experience:
We used the eValid website analysis engine, programmed (see below) to collect specific metrics that contribute to these factors. To assure accuracy the measurements were done over a short time frame and using identical access capabilities.
Results
The technical measurements
we made of the websites of the largest 10 of the
Fortune 500 Companies [as of 15 March 2003; these have recently changed slightly].
The analyses led to the following Best Online Experience comparison chart.
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The best-performing websites are in the upper right of the chart, and the worst-performing websites are in the lower left of the chart.
Individual Summary Results
The table below shows all of the results used to construct
the comparative chart.
Click to see the eValid Summary Report with the raw data.
Click to see the 3D-SiteMap for each WebSite.
Here are Animations and
Usage Instructions for the 3D-SiteMaps.
Right-click anywhere on any 3D-SiteMap for documentation.
Here are some
Usage Hints if you want to dig deeper in the 3D-SiteMaps.
# | Company | Click For Summary Report | Comments | Click For SiteMap | Comments |
1 | Bank of America Corp. ($53B) www.bankofamerica.com | eValid Report | C+: Large (over 5000 links), very quick but not particularly current and with a large number of broken/unavailable links. |
![]() | A: This structure is conventional, good spread, only a few backward links. |
2 | Bank One Corp. ($25B) www.bankone.com | eValid Report | A+: A relatively smaller site, less than 500 pages, but quick and well maintained with good connectivity. |
![]() | C+: Too many layers from the base URL, too many backward links. |
3 | FleetBoston ($19B) www.fleetboston.com | eValid Report | A: With about 700 pages and 4100 links, this website appears to be optimum in size, is very clean and very fast. |
![]() | B+: Clean and simple, but some backward links. Reasonably good spread out between layers. |
4 | J.P. Morgan Chase ($50B) www.jpmorganchase.com | eValid Report | B+: Compact, self contained, relatively slower site with very few problem pages and very good currency and connectivity. |
![]() | B: Small and clean organization but the two levels from the top hint at conflicts. |
5 | MBNA ($10B) www.mbna.com | eValid Report | A: A compact site with over 700 pages and only 1405 links, quite quick, but not as well maintained as some. |
![]() | B+: Clean organization, but perhaps too deep, a few reverse links, none broken in the top layers. |
6 | National City Corp. ($9B) www.nationalcity.com | eValid Report | A+: Very large (over 5000 links) but very clean, well maintained, and very fast. |
![]() | A+: Very clean, very direct, good spread. |
7 | SunTrust Banks ($B) www.suntrust.com | eValid Report | B: A very large website (over 5000 links), relatively clean and with good connectivity. Well maintained but slow. |
![]() | A-: Only two reverse links, and a single shallow layer, which may be overly complex. |
8 | U.S. Bancorp ($16B) www.usbank.com | eValid Report | A+: Large (over 5000 links), relatively clean, and the fastest of the websites in this group. |
![]() | B: Good spread, but too many layers, too many backward links. |
9 | Wachovia Corp.($22B) www.wachovia.com | eValid Report | A: Very large site (over 5000 links), quick and very well maintained but with a few broken/unavailable links. |
![]() | B-: Confused dependence from the base URL, too many layers, too many backward links. |
10 | Wells Fargo ($27B) www.wellsfargo.com | eValid Report | C: Very large (over 5000 links) website, good connectivity between pages, very clean but the slowest of the group. |
![]() | A: Narrow and deep, with a lot of links on the 2nd layer. |
Methodology
To collect the data used in the chart we used the eValid website
analysis engine with parameter settings as follows:
Web Access Details
All tests were done on a 384 Kbps (peak performance value) ADSL connection.
The data was collected with successive eValid runs
in a serial sequence during the normal business day.