Frequently Asked Questions

Disclaimer: The State and Local Government on the Net Directory is not affiliated with any branch or level of government. Although these pages are updated frequently, they are not as up-to-date as the information contained on individual state and local government servers.

What is the purpose of the State and Local Government on the Net pages?

These pages are intended to provide convenient access to a wide variety of links to government information.

What criteria are used to include or exclude sites?

Server control and content are the two major factors in deciding whether to include a specific site on this list.

State Links:

Servers controlled and managed by state agencies
Servers with obvious state domain names (example: www.state.xx.us)

Local Links:

Servers controlled and managed by local government agencies
Servers with a domain that is obviously a city (ci) or county (co) one
Note: We only list government sites using these domains. See the US Domain Registry for the United States for more information.
Servers that include specific mention of the government agency responsible for the site
Sites that include more than listings from local telephone books or brochures

Generally Excluded:

Personal sites
Neighborhood pages
Political advocacy and campaign pages
Commercial sites
Chamber of Commerce sites
Local media and Internet provider pages
Promotion and travel sites (except for official Tourism Offices)
Free-net and community servers unless they have up-to-date government information supplied/managed by government agencies

Why doesn't the page for state xxx show a link for department zzz?

State governments tend to follow one of three patterns in organizing information resources on the Internet:

A single state server offering access to various agencies - all based on the root domain of the state server
A main state server and a number of agency servers - each using a unique domain
A state server offering some agency pages from the main state server and some agencies using their own domains

The listings on these pages are generally restricted to sites that use different domains from the main state or department server. Sites offering access to multiple agencies are listed only once.

If a link to the agency you are looking for is not listed here, check the main state server.

How are commissions and boards treated?

The status of commissions and boards is not always obvious, so they are listed separately unless the server states clearly that a board or commission is part of a specific branch of government.

How do I get my site on or off this list?

Please use our form on the Add a link page.

Why don't you have a link to ... ?

We haven't seen a link for this site.
It doesn't meet the criteria listed above.
We goofed - and you should tell us about it!

How can I link to these pages?

Please go to our link2us page.