What the U.S. Digital Analytics Program (DAP) Data Can & Cannot Tell Us: Investigating U.S. Government Website Usage Over Time

While government websites are essential for accessing government information, data about these government websites is not always easy to access or interpret. The U.S. Digital Analytics Program (DAP), at analytics.usa.gov, captures anonymous daily website usage data for over 5,000 government websites, and yet the DAP provides only a 30-day archive of their data. This presentation provides an initial analysis of a unique dataset of two years of DAP data downloaded regularly by the presenters between 2016 and 2018. This dataset allows for an investigation into trends of government website usage, including content from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Weather Service, the Occupation Safety and Health Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and many others. The presentation will explore the degree of variability in such website usage data over time and will also raise questions about best practices for archiving both DAP data and the website page content included in DAP. The presentation will also consider the relevance of DAP data to wider discussions about preserving government website content and potential opportunities for creating more robust practices for collecting and archiving government website usage data