Performance Tracking > 2019 Tax Websites
Websitepulse 2019 Tax Performance & Uptime Report Summary
The US tax e-filling deadline has now passed (Apri 18th) and our 2019 Tax Season Report has finished. We measured both the performance of the twelve most popular tax websites’ home pages as well as a complete web transaction representative for the end users’ interactions with the websites.
The report measures Uptime and Response Time as the most important metrics for the availability and the reliability of any web-based operation, critical for the end users’ overall online experience.
Measurements of the multi-step online transactions are made every 15 minutes, simultaneously from 3 different monitoring locations: Washington DC (US East Coast), San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) and Chicago, IL (US Central).
The overall performance of most of the monitored tax websites demonstrated their preparedness to meet the challenges of the expected heavier web traffic during the whole 2019 tax season.
We have found out the daily average response time from all monitored websites was 8.191 sec. The daily average responses by locations are as follow:
The daily average uptime for the entire group of 12 websites for the 2019 tax season was 99.98%. The daily average uptime by locations are as follow:
Average Response times for the whole period
Average Uptime for the whole period
Best regards, and takeITeasy™ with WebSitePulse™
Iavor Marinoff, CEO
Methodology:
The 2019 Tax Reports reflect a complete web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between April 04 and April 18, 2019. Performance and availability measurements are made for a typical multi-step web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval, every day between the hours of 6AM and 3AM EST. Between 3AM and 6AM is the time when a scheduled maintenance most likely will be performed by IT staff and that is why we automatically suspend the monitoring process during this time every day. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each transaction are comparable for all websites, and reflect the real online user and tax e-filer experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US-based locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources and only after the above procedure is performed and has returned consistent results, the detected error is confirmed, recorded, and included in the daily performance reports. In these cases, an advanced WebSitePulse exclusive feature comes into play - Forced Monitoring -, which automatically switches to a 3 minute monitoring interval for increased accuracy.
About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.
Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:
Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of spe cific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to som e special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.
With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:
The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".
The report measures Uptime and Response Time as the most important metrics for the availability and the reliability of any web-based operation, critical for the end users’ overall online experience.
Measurements of the multi-step online transactions are made every 15 minutes, simultaneously from 3 different monitoring locations: Washington DC (US East Coast), San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) and Chicago, IL (US Central).
The overall performance of most of the monitored tax websites demonstrated their preparedness to meet the challenges of the expected heavier web traffic during the whole 2019 tax season.
We have found out the daily average response time from all monitored websites was 8.191 sec. The daily average responses by locations are as follow:
- Washington DC (US East Coast) – 6.117 sec
- San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) – 11.038 sec
- Chicago, IL (US Central) – 7.419 sec
The daily average uptime for the entire group of 12 websites for the 2019 tax season was 99.98%. The daily average uptime by locations are as follow:
- Washington DC (US East Coast) – 99.98%
- San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) – 100.00%
- Chicago, IL (US Central) – 99.95%
Average Response times for the whole period
# | Target | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL | Washington, DC | Avg. resp. time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | esmarttax.com | 3.345 | 2.164 | 1.772 | 2.427 |
2 | etax.com | 3.047 | 2.512 | 1.832 | 2.464 |
3 | libertytax.com | 4.253 | 2.832 | 1.991 | 3.025 |
4 | expresstaxrefund.com | 3.960 | 3.629 | 2.548 | 3.379 |
5 | freetaxusa.com | 2.853 | 2.992 | 5.973 | 3.939 |
6 | taxslayer.com | 5.050 | 3.633 | 3.561 | 4.081 |
7 | taxact.com | 7.957 | 4.003 | 2.806 | 4.922 |
8 | hrblock.com | 11.011 | 5.312 | 4.973 | 7.099 |
9 | turbotax.com | 11.970 | 11.632 | 4.735 | 9.446 |
10 | efile.com | 17.930 | 10.553 | 4.505 | 10.996 |
11 | fileonline.1040.com | 28.375 | 13.720 | 7.221 | 16.439 |
12 | olt.com | 35.269 | 26.280 | 31.686 | 31.078 |
Average Uptime for the whole period
# | Target | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL | Washington, DC | Avg. uptime |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | fileonline.1040.com | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% |
2 | esmarttax.com | 100.000% | 99.967% | 100.000% | 99.989% |
3 | expresstaxrefund.com | 100.000% | 99.964% | 100.000% | 99.988% |
4 | libertytax.com | 99.986% | 99.984% | 99.985% | 99.985% |
5 | etax.com | 100.000% | 99.946% | 100.000% | 99.982% |
6 | efile.com | 99.984% | 99.967% | 99.981% | 99.978% |
7 | olt.com | 100.000% | 99.928% | 99.981% | 99.970% |
8 | turbotax.com | 99.982% | 99.926% | 99.973% | 99.960% |
9 | taxslayer.com | 99.809% | 99.809% | 99.752% | 99.790% |
10 | taxact.com | 99.697% | 99.801% | 99.578% | 99.692% |
11 | hrblock.com | 99.539% | 99.520% | 99.512% | 99.524% |
12 | freetaxusa.com | 99.250% | 99.229% | 99.214% | 99.231% |
Best regards, and takeITeasy™ with WebSitePulse™
Iavor Marinoff, CEO
Methodology:
The 2019 Tax Reports reflect a complete web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between April 04 and April 18, 2019. Performance and availability measurements are made for a typical multi-step web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval, every day between the hours of 6AM and 3AM EST. Between 3AM and 6AM is the time when a scheduled maintenance most likely will be performed by IT staff and that is why we automatically suspend the monitoring process during this time every day. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each transaction are comparable for all websites, and reflect the real online user and tax e-filer experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US-based locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources and only after the above procedure is performed and has returned consistent results, the detected error is confirmed, recorded, and included in the daily performance reports. In these cases, an advanced WebSitePulse exclusive feature comes into play - Forced Monitoring -, which automatically switches to a 3 minute monitoring interval for increased accuracy.
About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.
Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:
Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of spe cific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to som e special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.
With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:
- WebSitePulse should be referred as the "Source" of the information;
- WebSitePulse should be acknowledged as the owner of the copyrights of the information in the Reports;
- The texts of the Reports could be changed or altered to better suit the needs and the style of the publisher without prior notice to WebSitePu lse. However, the integrity and the meaning of the information should be preserved;
The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".