Public sector web sites are outperforming their private sector counterparts, according to new research by web performance monitoring specialist Site Confidence.

Research revealed that government sites downloaded more quickly than business web sites when tested over a 24-hour period with a dial-up 40kbit/s connection.

On average, public sector web sites downloaded in 16.1 seconds, seven seconds faster than the best-performing commercial sector, travel, and 34.2 seconds faster than the worst performing – web portals.

The results prove that government sites are benefiting from being set tough targets, with performance that is measured and reported, according to Site Confidence chief executive Bill Kirkwood.

"They've got the message that getting to the information quickly and easily is the most important thing," Kirkwood said. "There's a strong message that if you have uncluttered pages without loads of Flash they will download easily, but some commercial companies get too carried away with fancy adverts and [other features], which slow down the experience."

Separate research conducted by the firm also found that government sites contained no missing components, such as images or gifts, unlike other sectors. Eighty-eight percent of aerospace manufacturers were guilty of this failing, and 40 percent of sites in the property sector had missing areas of their web pages.

"The message is that consumers are becoming more impatient with slow [and poorly performing sites], especially now many people have broadband," said Kirkwood. "There has been a huge commitment behind making [e-government] work, but private sector sites will improve because they generate so much revenue [so performance issues cannot be ignored]."

Meanwhile application optimisation specialist Mercury is currently conducting research into the performance of web sites originating in the countries of competing World Cup nations.

To compile its Web World Cup statistics, the firm analyses response times for the web site of the football association and largest broadcaster in Brazil, USA, Argentina and all European countries involved. So far the German FA site is the fastest at 0.42 seconds.