LV simplifies Internet address

Sito Negron

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

Las Vegas is touting what it calls a new, more user-friendly address on the Web -- www.lasvegasnevada.gov.

It replaces the address used by the city, and most other local government entities, for years. That old formula for local government Web addresses, said Joe Marcella, Las Vegas director of information technology, "was invented by an idiot and implemented by a sadist.

"It's extremely difficult to remember and not very useful for search engines," he said.

The federal government supplies the .gov domain names under a program operated out of the Office of Intergovernmental Solutions, Marcella said.

It's part of an effort to make the Internet more useful for people, he said.

"It's an alternative delivery system, so our citizens don't have to come down to City Hall," Marcella said.

People can more easily find the city's website, he said, even those outside Nevada, such as someone who received a traffic citation.

"They want to pay it here, but they're in Jersey someplace and don't want to come back to pay it," Marcella said.

He said the change won't cost the city anything because the domain name is free from the federal government, and other elements associated with it, such as changing letterhead, will be done "through attrition as we use supplies."

In the interim, all of the old addresses and e-mail contacts will work, probably for another year, he said. After that, visitors using the old addresses will be redirected to the new site.

The program had been in consideration for about three years, Marcella said, with Las Vegas waiting about the last two years for its application to be approved. He said the city has had a "soft opening" of the new address.