Federal Web sites see spike in traffic

Federal Web sites with information on the attacks on Afghanistan, the investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the current anthrax scare gripping the nation have seen a dramatic spike in usage. DefenseLink (www.defenselink.mil), the Defense Department's main Web site, noted a 243 percent increase in page requests in the week following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Users downloaded almost 4.5 million Web pages from DefenseLink. The week before the attacks, the figure was 1.3 million. Two days after the attacks, DefenseLink's network capacity was maxed out by the huge increase in traffic, said Terry Davis, manager of the Public Web Program in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Tripling the site's network capacity, or bandwidth, solved the problem. Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet audience measurement service, tracked Internet usage at federal Web sites during the week of Oct. 8. The FBI (www.fbi.gov) served 908,000 users that week, 518 percent more than the previous. Nielsen//NetRatings found that 67 percent of the visitors accessed the Bush administration's most wanted terrorists list (www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/fugitives.htm). The Justice Department (www.usdoj.gov) served 227,000 users, 62 percent more than the previous week. Citizens were also on the prowl for more information about anthrax. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov) served 515,000 users the week of Oct. 8, a 118 percent increase over the prior week. More than 59 percent of CDC browsers looked for Anthrax-related information, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. "Government Web sites play a large role in educating surfers, offering guidance on steps to take during these uncertain times," said Allen Weiner, vice president and senior analyst for NetRatings. FirstGov (www.firstgov.gov), the federal government's main portal, also noted a large increase in traffic. The Firstgov Web site lists everything from hospital phone numbers to links to important Web sites that deal with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. FirstGov normally attracts 1 million visitors a month. In the month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the number peaked at 7 million. "We felt there was a need to point people to the right resources," says Deborah Diaz, deputy associate administrator for the Office of FirstGov in the General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy. "We also let people know about services they may not have known to ask for, such as information about student loan relief and survivor's benefits." The Customs Service (www.customs.gov) has noted a slight increase in its average daily Web traffic. In August, the site received an average of 16,180 hits a day. In September, the site peaked at 17,398 hits a day. Monthly Web traffic at the Immigration and Naturalization Service's site (www.ins.gov) decreased by a small amount. In August, INS served 1.5 million users. In September, it served 1.48 million users. An INS spokesman said this fluctuation was normal for the site. The week before the terrorist attacks, the Air Force (www.af.mil) served 2.6 million total page downloads. That figure rose to 3.3 million the next week and peaked at 3.5 million the next.