sec.gov

Readiness by lane

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

Priority fixes for sec.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 14 seconds, 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 5 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 · Enable

   Meta description written

   Observed: The homepage had no meta description.

   What to do: Write a short, specific description of the page for people, not a list of keywords.

   58% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Meta Titles and Descriptions That Match Search Intent

4. Priority 4 · Accelerate

   Modern image formats in use

   Observed: The homepage had 10 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

What sec.gov already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• CAA records limit who can issue certificatesCAA limits issuance to digicert.com, entrust.net, letsencrypt.org.17% of peers
• DNSSEC signedDNSSEC delegation (DS record) present.19% of peers
• Nameservers spread across providersNameservers spread across more than one operator.25% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.sec.gov/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

DigiCert, 198-day validity, expiring 2026-12-11

CDN or edge

Akamai, Acquia

Platform or framework

Drupal

DNS operators

Akamai Edge DNS, plus 1 self-run or other nameserver domain

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains, preload

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

220 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

10 (png 19, svg 2, jpg 1)

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

• bundestag.de73
• gov-online.go.jp73
• minedu.gov.gr74
• pa.gov74
• pensionsmyndigheten.se74

Government Services readiness benchmark