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U.S. Government Web portal, FirstGov.gov, becomes USA.gov in January

Jan 03, 2007

Name change scheduled in January.  The official Web portal of the U.S. government is changing its name — to USA.gov.  FirstGov.gov will become USA.gov and FirstGov en español.gov will become GobiernoUSA.gov.  The U.S. General Services Administration, which manages the national portal, will soft-launch these changes on January 11. Media launch is scheduled for January 18. 

Why the name change?  Even though FirstGov.gov gets more than 80 million visitors a year, its name recognition is very low.  The name doesn’t intuitively tell you that this is the official U.S. Government site. It is cumbersome to say and difficult to remember.  On the other hand, “USA.gov” clearly describes the site.  “USA” is the term that most people around the world recognize for the United States – in fact, we already get about 600,000 visits a year from users who guess and type “USA.gov” into search engines.  “USA.gov” is intuitive, simple and easy to remember.

The official source of government information.  FirstGov.gov (soon to be USA.gov) is an award-winning, non-partisan website that accesses 50 million official U.S. federal, state, and local government web pages.  It provides a single gateway to government information helpfully arranged by topic, as well as by organization, and links to all state and territorial websites and many municipal sites.  GobiernoUSA.gov has over 900 external links and provides access to more than 125,000 pages in Spanish from the federal government, 42 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and local government websites. 

Government made easy.  With an enhanced search capability, a Web chat feature, RSS feeds, podcasts, a section specifically focused on State and local governments and a new gateway for foreign visitors, USA.gov will be the place to go for U.S. government information.  It will offer “government made easy” for your constituents, and make it easy for them and for others to find your home page.