.gov

Overview

.gov is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) derived from the word "government." It is one of the original Internet TLDs and is restricted to United States government entities. The TLD indicates official U.S. government presence online and allows registrations at the second level.

History

• Created as one of the original top-level domains defined in RFC 920 and implemented in the mid-1980s (operational in 1985).
• The first registered site was css.gov (June 1985).
• Administration/delegation history:
  • Early delegation to U.S. Federal Networking Council (FNC) during the late 1980s.
  • General Services Administration (GSA) administered .gov beginning in 1997.
  • In 2011 GSA selected Verisign to provide registry services (replacing Native Technologies).
  • The DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act of 2020 transferred responsibility for .gov to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA); CISA began managing the TLD in 2021.
  • In January 2023 CISA selected Cloudflare to replace Verisign for registry and authoritative DNS services.
• Fees and administration:
  • During GSA administration registration and renewal fees reached up to several hundred dollars per year.
  • When CISA began managing the TLD (April 2021) registration fees were removed.

Usage and Audience

• Eligible and typical users:
  • U.S. federal, state, local, territorial, and federally- or state-recognized tribal governments and publicly controlled entities.
• Common patterns and exceptions:
  • Many governmental bodies use .gov for official sites, but some government-related sites use other TLDs (for example, USPS uses usps.com; certain recruiting sites use .com; the Department of Defense typically uses .mil).
  • The full list of registered .gov domains is published on the official registrar site (get.gov/data).
• Geographic adoption:
  • As of 2025 all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and all territories except the Northern Mariana Islands have operational .gov domains.

Registration Rules

• Eligibility:
  • Limited to U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities: federal, state, local, territorial, and recognized tribal governments.
• Authorization and process:
  • Registration requires an authorization letter submitted to the operator (now CISA); the signer is typically the agency head, chief information officer (CIO), or highest-ranking/elected official for the requesting entity.
  • Registrations are processed via the official registrar (get.gov).
• Name and policy constraints (per DOTGOV and registrar rules):
  • Requested names must correspond with the requesting organization’s name or services and should not mislead or confuse users.
  • Generic terms are generally reserved for federal agencies; combinations with state/municipality names are permitted in many cases.
  • Most non-federal domain names for local entities are required to include a two-letter U.S. postal abbreviation or equivalent state-name identifier; exceptions exist for unique or well-known municipalities.
  • Domains may not be used for political campaign or commercial purposes; registrations must be made only by authorized individuals.
• Dispute policy: none listed in the administrative data.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Trust and authenticity:
  • .gov signals an official U.S. government presence online, contributing to user trust and brand authority.
  • Federal policy requires civilian executive-branch agencies to use .gov for their public websites, reinforcing perceived authenticity for federal services.
• Security and best practices:
  • Efforts have been made to increase security posture for .gov sites, including encouraging HTTPS adoption (HTTPS preloading opt-in) and measures to receive and handle security reports.
  • The DOTGOV Act directs CISA to maintain naming requirements that minimize misleading or confusing domain names, supporting public trust.

Notable Cases or Examples

• Early and notable milestones:
  • css.gov was the first registered .gov site (June 1985).
• Operational and policy events:
  • The .gov Reform Initiative (launched c.2011) sought to consolidate unnecessary federal websites and improve web governance.
  • In November 2019 a fraudulent authorization letter enabled takeover of exeterri.gov, highlighting weaknesses in prior authorization processes and prompting fraud-prevention improvements.
  • On August 14, 2013 a portion of .gov experienced downtime attributed to a DNSSEC algorithm-related issue.
  • Transition of registry services: Verisign (selected 2011) was replaced by Cloudflare (selected 2023) to provide registry and authoritative DNS services under CISA.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       GOV

organisation: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
address:      CSD/CB - Attn: .gov TLD
address:      CISA - NGR STOP 0645
address:      1110 N. Glebe Rd.
address:      Arlington VA 20598-0645
address:      United States of America (the)

contact:      administrative
name:         Registry Manager
organisation: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
address:      1110 N. Glebe Rd.
address:      Arlington VA 20598-0645
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 888 282 0870
e-mail:       help@get.gov

contact:      technical
name:         Registry Customer Service
organisation: Cloudflare, Inc.
address:      101 Townsend St.
address:      San Francisco CA 94107
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 888 993 5273
e-mail:       dotgov@cloudflare.com

nserver:      A.NS.GOV 199.33.230.1 2001:503:ff40:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      B.NS.GOV 199.33.231.1 2001:503:ff41:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      C.NS.GOV 199.33.232.1 2001:503:ff42:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      D.NS.GOV 199.33.233.1 2001:503:ff43:0:0:0:0:1
ds-rdata:     2536 13 2 0baf26b7bbf313a859046fd3b1ee49ddfba33934cfb3e717c21e2a2935c2f259

whois:        whois.nic.gov

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: https://get.gov

created:      1985-01-01
changed:      2025-03-13
source:       IANA