eValid™ -- Automated Web Quality Solution Browser-Based, Client-Side, Functional Testing & Validation, Load & Performance Tuning, Page Timing, Website Analysis, and Rich Internet Application Monitoring.

Summary
How do the WebSites of the Top 10 Companies of 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:

• Ease of Navigation. This factor is a combination of the average rate of download of pages and the number of successful page retrievals. A high score for ease of navigation means that users will have quick responses as they work on the website, and that they will find very few broken or unavailable pages.
• Quality of Maintenance. This factor is based on the relative age of pages found on the website. A well-maintained website has very-current information, and indicates that great care has been taken to assure the quality of the information.

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 measurements we made of the webstes of the Top 10 Fortune 500 Companies produced the relative Best Online Experience comparison chart shown. The data shown are normalized relative values.

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	Altria ($73B) www.altria.com	eValid Report	B: A very large WebSite which also exceeded the depth-3 5000 link limit.		A+: The WebSite structure is normal, with no reverse edges, no broken links near the top of the site.
2	ChevronTexaco ($100B) www.chevrontexaco.com	eValid Report	A+: This a very large WebSite implemented with dynamic page generation and an oops page to prevent broken links.		B+: Good basic organization, a few reverse links, none broken in the top layers.
3	Citigroup ($112B) www.citigroup.com	eValid Report	C-: This WebSite appears to be relatively stable (nearly half of the pages are old) and the informational aspects appear to be stable.		A-: Classic WebSite hierarchy, a few broken links.
4	Enron ($139B) www.enron.com	eValid Report	A: Very clean site, with few old pages, but sometimes bulky in content.		A-: Good spread from the top, a few broken links.
5	Exxon Mobil ($192B) www.exxonmobil.com	eValid Report	A+: Very large, mostly current, relatively quick WebSite.		B: Moderate complexity and depth, but too many choices in most cases.
6	Ford Motor ($162B) www.ford.com	eValid Report	B: Well organized WebSite, but plagued by slow loading pages.		A-: Good link fan out, a few 2nd layer broken links, not overly complex.
7	General Electric ($126B) www.ge.com	eValid Report	B: Relative large site but over 10% broken links in the top three layers, relatively stable.		B+: Clean structure, perhaps too heavy at the second layer, some broken links in top structure.
8	General Motors ($177B) www.gm.com	eValid Report	C+: A very clean WebSite, headed by a FLASH homepage, but with perhaps too many broken links. Very current, relatively quick, good link density.		A: Very good spread, limited complexity, some concentration points, nothing broken.
9	IBM ($86B) www.ibm.com	eValid Report	C: A large WebSite with a surprising number of broken links and slow-loading pages.		C-: Topmost layer shows disorganization with several broken and some backward links.
10	WalMart ($216B) www.walmart.com	eValid Report	A: A very large WebSite that is implemented with dynamic pages, it is one of the few where the 5000-link was exceeded.		A-: The structure is adequate, but complex.

Methodology
To collect the data used in the chart we used the eValid WebSite analysis engine with parameter settings as follows:

• Search Mode. We used the HTTP Normal mode which scans pages in the background without using the cache (all pages are freshly downloaded).
• Depth of Search. All of these tests were done with a maximum tree depth of 3. Most of these WebSites are many layers deeper.
• Large Page Threshold. We chose a relatively small 10 KByte limit for this factor because user response is usually best when the total page size is small. 10 KBytes @ 5 KBytes/second = 2.0 secs.
• Slow Page Threshold. We chose a 2.0 sec threshold to decide if a page was slow loading.
• Old Page Threshold. Here we chose a threshold of 1 day (24 hrs) to emphasize the stability of the site.
• Broken/Unavailable Link Counts. This factor is expressed as a percentage of the total number of URLs visited.
• Excluded URLs. To make sure that the report was not biased by the existence of long and very-long files -- PDF format files, for example -- these suffixes and a similar set were blocked from consideration.
• Mapped Links Limit. Because these corporate WebSites tend to be very large we imposed a 5000-link limit in each run. This limit means that eValid maps only the URLs that give rise to the first 5000 links. After the limit is reached eValid continues to search out properties of the already-enumerated URLs that gave rise to those links.
• 3D-SiteMap Limit. For simplicity the 3D-SiteMaps were made with depth 2, 1000-link limits, and don't include graphics URLs.

Web Access Details
All tests were done on a 384 Kbps (peak performance value) ADSL connection. The data was collected with successive eValid runs during normal business hours.