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Link to Appropriate Cross-Agency Portals

What It Is

Link to appropriate cross-agency portals when applicable, to guide the public to additional resources that exist across the U.S. government. This is a best practice for managing your agency’s website.

Why This is Important

Links to cross-agency websites (portals) can supplement or eliminate the need to create information on your website. Links to other government information can guide visitors to additional resources to help them find what they need. This is especially important for federal public websites since many visitors do not know the organizational structure of the government and may need additional assistance to locate the information or service that best meets their needs. Links to portals also help visitors get to the most authoritative, current source for the information. It's much more efficient for you to link to information that someone else is keeping current than to have to recreate that information and keep it up-to-date yourself.

OMB Policies for Federal Public Websites require agencies to (#1A) “disseminate information to the public in a timely, equitable, efficient and appropriate manner” and (#2A) “maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information and services provided to the public,” and (#3F) “must identify mandatory links and post (or link to) the following information on their principal website and any known major entry points to their sites ... 8) other cross-government portals or links required by law or policy.” By linking to cross-agency portals, instead of recreating information yourself, you will make your website more efficient and useful.

How to Implement

  • When you provide information on a particular topic or for a particular audience for which there is an appropriate, useful government-wide portal, link to the government-wide portal from the page(s) on that topic. A list of recognized cross-agency portals is provided on USA.gov.
  • As with all links, be sure to review your links to cross-agency portals routinely, to ensure they are current and accurate.
  • When providing organizational information to visitors (for example, a list of all cabinet-level agencies or independent agencies), link to the organizational directory pages on USA.gov, which provides a comprehensive listing of all federal organizations.
  • If a cross-agency portals doesn't really pertain to your information, don't link to it. It can confuse the audience. Link only if the portal content adds additional information or is a natural “next step” for the audience who is using your site.

Examples


Many federal public websites follow this best practice. This practice is part of the guidelines and best practices published by the Interagency Committee on Government Information to aid agencies' implementation of OMB Policies for Public Websites.

 

Page Updated or Reviewed: December 14, 2005

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