GOV.UK Celebrates Second Birthday With 1bn Visits

GOV.UK, the platform which brings together government services and information online, has turned two years old and hit one billion visits.

The site is the first ever single domain for government and its launch replaced the old DirectGov, Business Link and over 250 separate Department and agency websites.

By hitting one billion visits, GOV.UK has managed to place itself among popular websites such as BT, BBC Weather and Sky News in terms of the weekly visits they all receive.

“As part of our long-term economic plan this government is building digital by default services that are designed around the needs of users,” claimed Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office.

“I’m delighted we have now reached a billion visits – not only is GOV.UK simpler, clearer and faster for users, it’s also saving taxpayers £60m a year,” he added.

Popular Pages And Transactions

According to the Cabinet Office, the top three most visited pages on the platform are find a job, renew your vehicle tax and calculate your state pension.

The government has also confirmed that 90% of GOV.UK visits come from within the UK and 36% come via mobile devices – 24% phones and 12% tablets – but this increases to around 50% on weekends.

The highest proportion of mobile visits use the calculate your childcare maintenance page.

The top five internal searches on the government website are jobs, trade tariff, universal jobmatch, job search and passport.

Meanwhile, the three most popular transactions completed on site are tax disc renewals, statutory off road notification (SORN) and practical driving test bookings.

“Award-Winning Site”

“The GOV.UK team has worked hard and it’s great to see their efforts rewarded like this. There’s still a lot to do, but one thing is clear: our agile, iterative, user-centric approach works,” claimed Government Digital Service (GDS) executive director Mike Bracken.

“GOV.UK has won awards and praise from all over the world, but none of it would have happened without users.

“After two years, we’re still learning from them and still iterating and improving the site in response to feedback. Long may that continue,” he added.

© 24N.biz