Link to the Homepage

What It Is

To improve usability, link back to the your website's homepage or to another appropriate, logical starting point, from each page. This is a best practice for managing your agency’s website.

Why It's Important

Visitors often need to access a website's front page to choose other paths and to have another way of knowing where they are within a website. This helps both those who get lost and others who drill deeply into a website from a search engine or other source.

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) and “maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information and services provided to the public.” By providing a link back to the homepage from each page on the website, you'll make use of your website more efficient and useful to the public.

How to Implement

• Make sure that your link to the homepage is clearly marked. Many people do not recognize that an organization's logo links to the homepage. If you use a graphical link to your homepage, it's a good idea to include text indicating that it links to the homepage.
• If your website is for a subordinate bureau, division or section of your agency, you may choose to include a link to the homepage of your parent organization. For example, the FBI may choose to link to its parent organization, the Department of Justice.

Examples

• Department of Justice - "home" link in the top navigation
• Social Security Administration - "home" link in the top navigation

Many agencies follow this best practice, which is part of the guidelines and best practices published by the Interagency Committee on Government Information to aid agencies' implementation of OMB's Policies for Federal Public Websites.