The Investis Quarterly Corporate Website Ranking, which measures the effectiveness of all FTSE 100 corporate websites, found the banking sector to be one of the poorest performers relative to its size.

The research found that little industry perspective is available through the banks' corporate sites and also notes widespread poor or slow responses to the crisis. The report says that the lack of communication other than press releases highlights the lack of control over message and events the banks have exerted.

Insurance group Aviva topped the rankings, standing out for its forward-thinking personalisation tools and optimisation of the site for Blackberry users. Food retail was the best performing sector - with Sainsbury's coming in for praise for its web-focussed annual review and CR report.

The mining sector performed worst of all, with four of the ten FTSE 100 mining firms in the bottom ten of the rankings.

‘A well managed website can make the difference between merely surviving and success,' said Elisabeth Lewis-Jones, president of the CIPR. ‘As the current economic situation bites, organisations are likely to rely even more heavily on their online commutations, which are more responsive to change and comparatively cost effective.'