Handbook for the Site Scanning program

The Site Scanning program maintains a number of automated processes that, together, consitute the entire project and seek to deliver useful data. The basic flow of these events are as follows:

• Each week, a comprehensive list of public federal .gov websites is assembled as the Federal Website Index.

  • Direct download of the current Federal Website Index.
  • Process description, including details about the sources used, how the list is combined, and which criteria are used to remove entries.
  • Snapshots from each step in the assembly process, including which URLs are removed at each step and which remain.
  • Data dictionary for the Federal Website Index.
  • Summary report for the assembly process.
  • Summary report for the completed Federal Website Index.
  • Task repository.

• Every day, the Federal Website Index is then scanned. This is done by loading each Target URL in a virtual browser and noting the results. This information is the Site Scanning data.

  • Scanning process description, including what criteria are used to create each field of data.
  • Data dictionary for the Site Scanning data.

• The resulting information is stored in a database that is queryable via API, but each week, a series of static snapshot of the data are generated and made available for download.

  • API Documentation.
  • The ‘All’ snapshot (CSV) includes every URL in the Federal Website Index.
  • The ‘Primary’ snapshot (CSV) is a subset of the initial snapshot and includes only live, human-readable URLs. This is likely the best starting point for most users.
  • The ‘Unique Final URL’ snapshot (CSV) then further trims the Primary snapshot by removing duplicative Final URLs (details).
  • The ‘Unique Final Website’ snapshot (CSV) then finally trims the Unique Final URL snapshot by removing duplicative Final URL - Base Websites (details). This is arguably the best count of federal public .gov websites.

• After these snapshots are generated, a series of reports are run that analyze or pull information out of them.

  • Summary report of the ‘All’ snapshot.
  • Summary report of the ‘Primary’ snapshot.
  • Summary report for the ‘Unique Final URL’ snapshot.
  • Summary report for the ‘Unique Final Website’ snapshot.

• Other useful information

  • Schedule for the above processes is the schedule for the above, automated processes.
  • Description of how the list of websites is filtered down at each step
  • Sample dataset that represents different edge cases.
  • List of proposed but not yet built scans.
  • Archive of historical snapshots.
  • Description of the federal web presence
  • Program issue tracker.
  • Program website.

• Project Repositories

  • Primary
  • Documentation
  • Analysis
  • Federal Website Index
  • Site Scanning Engine
  • Snapshots