UKOLN - Web Focus - Benchmarking Museum Web Sites

Benchmarking Museums - Guardian Six

A benchmark of museum Web sites given in the Guardian Online supplement's list of the six best museum Web sites.

The following surveys were carried out:

Analysis of Domain Names
Analysis of 404 Error Pages
Analysis of robots.txt File
Analysis of Search Engines
Analysis of Link Popularity
Analysis of Search Engine Coverage
Analysis of Accessibility of Entry Point
Analysis of Compliance With Standards
Analysis of Entry Point
Analysis of Cachability of Entry Point
Analysis of Relationships (and popularity and nos. of links)
Analysis of Web Server Software

Domain Names

The domain names of the museum Web sites is summarised below.

	Name	URL	Comment
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/	Simple domain name with `.org` domain
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	http://www.scran.ac.uk/	Simple domain name with `.ac.uk` domain
3	The Metropolitan, New York	http://www.metmuseum.org/	Simple domain name with `.org` domain
4	Tate Modern	http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/	Use of domain name with `.org.uk` domain and entry point at first level
5	The Louvre, Paris	http://www.louvre.fr/	Simple domain name with `.fr` domain
6	Design Museum, London	http://www.designmuseum.org/	Simple domain name with `.org` domain

Summary

5 museums have an entry point which is the domain name and 1 has an entry point which is one level beneath the domain name
3 have a .org domain; 1 has a .org.uk domain; 1 (8%) have a .ac.uk domain; 1 has a .fr domain

Discussion

Most of the museums have a short, memorable URL for the entry points. This is very desirable for a variety of reasons (e.g. branding, ease of indexing, etc.) Different approaches are taken to the top level domain (.co.uk, .org.uk, .com and .ac.uk). This lack of consistency may cause some confusions for end users, although the confusion may be unavoidable if it reflects different funding streams, etc. However there is potential for the .museum top level domain. A more comprehensive survey of domain names may help in planning for deployment of use of the .museum domain.

404 Error Page

A summary of the 404 error pages provided by the Museum Web sites is given below.

	Name	Error Page	Comment
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	Tailored error message (in English and Russian) with search facility and navigational bar
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	Tailored error message but only very limited navigation
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	Tailored error message but some navigational features
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	Standard Apache server error message
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	Standard server error message
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	[Web site not available]

Summary

10 museums (77%) still use the default server error message
3(23%) have a lightly branded error message

Discussion

The 404 page may be one of the most widely used page on an organisations Web site. It is therefore important to ensure that this page helps users with their navigation as, by accessing this page, they are lost. The page can provide access to a site map, a search facility and contact details. Branding of the 404 page can also support the organisation's visual identity.

It may also be desirable to provide a context sensitive error page. For example different error messages could be provided for users who go to a non-existent page directly (by typing in a URL), who follow an external link or who follow an internal link. Different error messages could also be provided for different parts of a Web site (e.g. www.council.gov.uk/museum/foo, www.council.gov.uk/library/foo and www.council.gov.uk/foo could have different error pages).

Providing a simple tailored 404 page is easy to implement and gives usability benefits.

For further information see the article on WebWatch: 404s - What's Missing? published in Ariadne issue 20 or as an example of a branded and functional 404 page see the Natural History Museum 404 page.

Robots.txt Page

The robots.txt file (located in the server root) was examined.

	Name	robots.txt Page	Comment
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	Very simple file
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	Simple file
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	Simple file
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	Simple file
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	None
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	[Web site does not exist]

Summary

4 museums have a robots.txt file
1 museum has no robots.txt file

Discussion

The robots.txt file can be used to control indexing of your Web site by "robot" software. many people use this file to stop robots from indexing directories which are used for systems purposes (e.g. the /cgi-bin directory) or contain templates, images, etc. which need not be indexed by search engines such as AltaVista.

In addition you may wish to use the robots.txt file to prevent resources from being indexed because they are at a draft stage or it would not be appropriate for them to be indexed.

Search Engine

A summary of the search facility for the Web site is given below.

	Name	Search engine page	Comment
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Search]	Unknown
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Search]	Unknown
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Search]	Microsoft search engine
4	Tate Modern	None
5	The Louvre, Paris	None
6	Design Museum, London	[Web site not available]

Summary

3 museums have no search facility.
2 museums have a search facility.

Link Popularity

The Linkpopularity Web site was used to report on the number of links to the Web sites.

	Name	Search engine page	Comment
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	2,943 - AltaVista
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	11,196 - AltaVista
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	18,366 - AltaVista
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	723 - AltaVista
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	9,521 - AltaVista
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	492 - AltaVista

Summary

Most popular has 18,366 links.
Least popular has 492 links.

Discussion

The presence of many links to a Web site can help to drive traffic to the site. In addition, citation based search engines (such as Google) will give a higher ranking to Web sites which have many links.

Search Engine Coverage

AltaVistaUK had been used to report on the number of pages contained in its index. However during October 2001 the format of the results from AltaVistaUK was changed so that a summary was no longer provided. However the main version of AltaVista still gave a summary.

	Name	Search engine coverage (AltaVista)	Results
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	9
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	47
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	8
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	82
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	6
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	1

Summary

The site with the most number of pages by AltaVista has xx pages indexed.
The site with the least number of pages by AltaVista has 1 pages indexed.

Discussion

It should not normally be possible to have more pages indexed than are present on the Web site, so the numbers given should reflect the sizes of the museum Web sites. However it is possibly for only parts of a Web site to be indexed, if technoligies which are not search engine friendly are used, such as frames, dynamic pages and splash screens. In addition use of the robots.txt file could ban robots from indexing the site.

Accessibility

The Bobby accessibility tool was used to report on the accessibility of the entry pages of the Web sites.

	Name	Bobby Accessibility Check	Results
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	[Bobby could not connect to Web site]
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	1 P1 errors Size = 73.94 K NOTE - redirected page analysed
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	1 P1 errors Size = 57.28 K
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	1 P1 errors Size = 126.74 K
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	1 P1 errors Size = 1.41 K NOTE Analysis of frames page
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	[Bobby could not access Web site]

Summary

No sites had no Priority 1 errors.

Discussion

It should be noted that the Bobby service may not have analysed the user's view of sites which made use of frames or server redirects.

Compliance With Standards

The W3C HTML and CSS Validator and Link Checker were used to analyse the entry point of the Web sites.

	Name	Analyse	Comments
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	HTML: Contains HTML errors (used HTML 4 Transitional DTD) CSS: No style sheet used Links: No broken links
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	HTML: Contains HTML errors (automatic detection of DTD) CSS: No style sheet used Links: No broken links; two redirects found
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	HTML: Contains HTML errors (used HTML 4 Transitional DTD) CSS: CSS file could not be accessed Links: No results obtained
4	Tate Modern	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	HTML: Contains HTML errors (used HTML 4 Transitional DTD) CSS: Valid CSS file, but with some warnings Links: One broken link flagged (incorrectly)
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	HTML: Contains HTML errors (used HTML 4 Transitional DTD) CSS: No style sheet used Links: No broken links
6	Design Museum, London	[Validate HTML] [Validate CSS] [Link check]	[Web site not available]

Summary

No site complied with the HTML 4 DTD.

Page Analysis

The NetMechanic Web service was used to analyse the entry point of the Web sites.

	Name	Analyse	Broken Links	HTML Errors	Browser Problems	File Size (b)
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	0	2	2	38,324 b (including 4 images)
2a	Scottish Cultural Resource Network Home page	[Go]	0	7	1	7,321 b (including 1 images)
2b	Scottish Cultural Resource Network Redirected page	[Go]	1 (of first 25 analysed)	24	11	97,655 b (including 28 images)
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	0 (of first 25 analysed)	17	9	143,436 b (including 25 images)
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	0 (of first 25 analysed)	0	17	143,436 b (including 25 image)
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	0 0 0 0 0 0	7 6 1 10 7 3	3 6 1 10 5 3	45,342 b (including 9 images) 11,962 b (including 3 images) 31,973 b (including 6 images) 14,181 b (including 2 images) 8,183 b (including 2 images) 8,130 b (including 2 images)
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]

Summary

Only 1 site had no HTML errors
All entry points had no browser problems.
The largest Web site appeared to be 143,436 b (140 Kb).
The smallest Web site appeared to be 7,321 b (7 Kb). However this was the size of a page containing a redirect directive.
The smallest Web site appeared to be 38,324 b (37 Kb).

Web Server Software

Netcraft was used to report on the Web server software used.

	Name	Check Server	Results
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	Domino-Go-Webserver/4.6.2.50 on AIX
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) mod_perl/1.24 on Solaris
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	Apache/1.3.19 Ben-SSL/1.44 (Unix) ApacheJServ/1.1.2 on Solaris 8
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	Netscape-Enterprise/3.5.1 on AIX
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]

Summary

4 hosted on a Unix platform (2 on IBM's AIX and 2 on Solaris).
1 hosted on a Microsoft platform (NT 4 or Windows 98).

Cachability

The Cacheability Engine was used to see if the museum entry point can be cached.

	Name	Check Cachability	Results
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	Sends last modified date
2a	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	Not cachable
2b	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	Not cachable
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	Not cachable
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	Sends last modified date
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	Sends last modified date
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]	[Web site not available]

Summary

11 appear to be cachable
2 appear not to be cachable

	Name	Check Relationships	Popularity	Nos. Of Pages On Site	Nos. Of Links To Site
1	The Hermitage, St Petersberg	[Go]	29,152	675	4,269
2	Scottish Cultural Resource Network	[Go]	254,617	20	853
3	The Metropolitan, New York	[Go]	9,408	3,706	10,209
4	Tate Modern	[Go]	25,703	267	5,996
5	The Louvre, Paris	[Go]	10,198	1,293	2,994
6	Design Museum, London	[Go]

Summary

The most popular sites is The Metropolitan, New York in the top Web sites. (in top 9,408 Web sites with 10,209 links to the site).