How to get a .gov domain name?

September 8, 2005 6:31 PM

How does one obtain a .gov domain name? I have a small rural town government that would like to get one. Thanks in advance.
posted by maelanchai to computers & internet (18 comments total)

http://www.dotgov.gov/.
posted by rolypolyman at 6:39 PM on September 8, 2005

My understanding that it's for the US federal gov't and not local/state governments.
posted by furtive at 6:51 PM on September 8, 2005

Not so, furtive. From rpm's link,
"To preserve the integrity of the .gov name space, .gov domains are limited to United States government organizations at the federal, Native Sovereign Nation, state, and local level, and U.S. territories."
posted by Gyan at 6:56 PM on September 8, 2005

furtive: your understanding would be wrong, I can think of several state/local .gov domains.
posted by nmiell at 6:58 PM on September 8, 2005

I sit corrected. The FAQ on the site wasn't very helpful.
posted by furtive at 7:04 PM on September 8, 2005

You probably want a .us domain.
posted by zadcat at 7:15 PM on September 8, 2005

I think zadcat is right... most of the local/county governments I've seen use a .us address (and a few, surprisingly, use .org).
posted by rolypolyman at 7:16 PM on September 8, 2005

p.s. Not to say that Gyan isn't right either! I think it just depends on which route you want to go. The .gov address, at $125 annually, seems really expensive and is probably why a lot of local governments don't do it.
posted by rolypolyman at 7:20 PM on September 8, 2005

At least for oregon, counties are www.co..or.us, and cities are www.ci..or.us. I'd check if your state has a similar arrangement. I have no idea how standard this is.
posted by devilsbrigade at 7:26 PM on September 8, 2005

... mefi tags suck.

www.co.[countyname].or.us and www.ci.[cityname].or.us
posted by devilsbrigade at 7:27 PM on September 8, 2005

Maybe a .us then. $125 is awfully steep. .org, .net, and .com are all already taken. Thanks for the feedback.
posted by maelanchai at 7:28 PM on September 8, 2005

I'm not sure how important the domain name is anyway. (My county opted for westchestergov.com.) As long as people know about it, it should be fine.
posted by danb at 7:37 PM on September 8, 2005

Dot gov would seem to give you a lot more credibility than .us or .org.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:54 PM on September 8, 2005

co.[countyname].[state].us and ci.[cityname].[state].us are standard going back many years now -- pre-web, I think.

Not every entity has a website or bothers to point the US domain reserved for them at the website they have, though. The most common alternate is some sort of .com, largely because of the ease of registration management.

It would really be nice if things like clerk.co.*.*.us worked universally, but that's never gonna happen, and I think we're past the point of needing a sane domain hierarchy. I think the $125 fee, though, is partly to dissuade clutter in .gov.

org, .net, and .com are all already taken

What, for Smithville.com and cognates? Why not go with SmithvilleTownship.com or the like? Plenty of places do. Again, it would be lovely if this sort of thing made sense, but we all have Google now.
posted by dhartung at 9:34 PM on September 8, 2005

Yeah... go with the .gov. That is, if your state isn't all organized, domain-wise, like Oregon. I always thought that was a clever way to do it, but it never really seems to have caught on elsewhere... The plus side, though, is that you can probably track down the person who controls the .us extension for your state and get a domain/dns for free.

In AZ, we do everything ad hoc -- we're tempe.gov out here in... tempe.

Also, .gov delivers a bit of authority that another domain won't, necessarily. People wouldn't have any doubt that they were looking at the "true" site for the city.
posted by ph00dz at 4:44 AM on September 9, 2005

The 'propper' name you should get is whatever.state-code.us. All states have their two-letter state code so you should talk to whoever is in charge of your state's two letter code.

even though you can get a .gov name, it's not the 'correct' location.
posted by delmoi at 9:00 AM on September 9, 2005

Dot gov would seem to give you a lot more credibility than .us or .org.

Thats true now that they started selling .us domians. Before they were only used by states as in state-code.us.

While .gov may give you some credibility, you won't get points from internet-old schoolers!
posted by delmoi at 9:03 AM on September 9, 2005

Thats true now that they started selling .us domians. Before they were only used by states as in state-code.us.

Well actually, not quite. While states, counties, cities, schools, libraries, etc. got to use .us domains, they were, and still are, available for free (usuallly...) to the general public. I've owned tofu.portland.or.us for the last eight years and haven't had to pay a dime to anyone for it.

Do a google search for "locality domains" and the name of your city and you should find out how to get one yourself.
posted by pwb503 at 10:43 AM on September 9, 2005