Boulder County website now using dot gov domain

On July 6, the Boulder County website was successfully able to migrate its domain name, as well as all of the website's content, from bouldercounty.org to bouldercounty.gov.

The switch was made to the dot gov domain name because of the many security benefits that it provides.

One major security benefit is that the registration of a dot gov domain is only limited to qualified government organizations and programs — which are intensively regulated by the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency — which means that visitors to the website can have the necessary assurance that they are accessing a legitimate U.S. government website.

Other notable benefits include the decreased ability of bad actors with malicious intent to impersonate government websites, as well as enhanced security features that can provide the public with the confidence and ease in knowing that they are accessing a secure website.

“This migration to bouldercounty.gov serves to augment our already strong cybersecurity practices and posture here at Boulder County,” said County IT Director Paul Jannatpour. “Cybersecurity experts agree having a dot gov domain adds yet another layer of protection for local governments to protect themselves and their residents from online threats ranging from phishing attempts to misinformation or scam websites.”

Eventually, the county also will move to dot gov email addresses for its staff sometime in 2023. This change will provide increased levels of protection to the county, county employees, and those who correspond with the county, because of the increased difficulty of being able to impersonate dot gov email accounts.

All bouldercounty.org pages will now automatically redirect to the new bouldercounty.gov domain. These redirects will be utilized for the long-term foreseeable future, which means that there will be no public impact if someone is unaware of the new domain.

The county will also continue to use BoCo.org as its link shortener for ease of access, and visitors can rest assured that they will land on the appropriate dot gov pages.