<p>Public university websites serve as the primary channel for accessing information as well as educational and administrative services, functioning as persistent digital work environments. Their operation shapes the conditions of interaction with information, which may influence long-term digital well-being. In this study, digital well-being is treated as an interpretative framework for analysing systemic website characteristics described by quantifiable attributes, including performance, interface stability, accessibility, mobile adaptability, search engine optimisation, and digital noise. The article proposes a synthetic quality index, Web Well-Being Friendliness (WWBF), and applies it to assess public university websites (<i>N</i> = 65). The results indicate that websites with moderate WWBF (63.08%) dominate the sample, followed by a substantial share of high-WWBF websites (29.23%) and a small proportion of low-WWBF websites (7.69%). The findings suggest that current differences in website quality are primarily associated with the stability and coherence of the digital environment, rather than with compliance with technical standards alone.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>