bls.gov

Readiness by lane

Green: bls.gov. Thin bar: Government Services peer median.

Priority fixes for bls.gov

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Accelerate

   Static files cached for 30 days or more

   Observed: A same-site stylesheet or script was cacheable for no max-age, short of the 30-day benchmark.

   Why it matters: Returning visitors and later page views reuse cached files instead of downloading them again.

   What to do: Give versioned (fingerprinted) CSS, JavaScript, fonts and images Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable, and change the file name whenever the content changes.

   30% of Government Services peers do this. Limit: Read from the homepage response only; other pages or regions may send different headers.

   Guide: Browser Caching Guide for Website Owners

2. Priority 2 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 7 external scripts without async or defer.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   39% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

3. Priority 3 · Accelerate

   Modern image formats in use

   Observed: The homepage had 40 images and none used WebP or AVIF.

   What to do: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.

   15% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format

4. Priority 4 · Accelerate

   Offscreen images lazy-loaded

   Observed: The homepage had 40 images and none used loading="lazy".

   What to do: Add loading="lazy" to images below the fold. Do not lazy-load the main hero image, because that delays the largest visible element.

   36% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Lazy Loading Without Broken Pages

What bls.gov already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• HTTP/3 advertisedHTTP/3 advertised.11% of peers
• DNSSEC signedDNSSEC delegation (DS record) present.19% of peers
• Reachable over IPv6IPv6 address published.27% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.bls.gov/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

DigiCert, 198-day validity, expiring 2027-03-28

DNS operators

1 self-run or other nameserver domain

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains, preload

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

78 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

40 (gif 21, png 8, jpg 8, svg 3)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Government Services sites

• cnj.jus.br71
• comunidad.madrid71
• diia.gov.ua72
• pishkhan24.com73
• uidai.gov.in72

Government Services readiness benchmark