HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOD-069-04
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REPORT
CORPORATE SERVICES DEPARTMENT
Meeting:
GENERAL PURPOSE AND ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE
Date: December 6, 2004
Report #: COD-069-04
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By-law #
Subject:
CLARINGTON.NET
Recommendations:
It is respectfully recommended that the General Purpose and Administration Committee
recommend to Council the following:
1. THAT Report COD-069-04 be received;
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ReVjeWe~ rranklin Wu,
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Submitted by. ne Marano
Director of Corporate Services
Officer
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30.11.04
CORPORATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF CLARINGTON
40 TEMPERANCE STREET, BOWMANVILLE, ONTARIO L 1 C 3A6 T 905-623-3379 F
905-0584
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REPORT NO.: COD-069-04
BACKGROUND
When the Municipality of Clarington secured its original web address (domain) in
September of 1996, there was a Canadian Registry for Canadian domains that had a
number of requirements - specifically for government sites. For example, all
government site domains had to be prefixed with the category of government - e.g. city,
town, village, township, municipality, etc. Second these sites also had to have suffixes
that indicated the resident province (i.e. .on) and, of course, .ca to indicate the resident
country of Canada. At this time, .gov suffixes were reserved for US government sties
and .com was used specifically to indicate commerciallbusiness sites.
Today, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is still the governing
body for Canadian domain names but the rules regarding the suffixes available for use
have been relaxed. What this means is that the Municipality has the opportunity to
shorten its existing universal resource locator (URL) or web address.
THE CHOICES
In considering the alternative web addresses, a thorough search of existing
Clarington-related web addresses was undertaken. The intent of this exercise was to
identify domain name that would be somewhat shorter than the existing address
(www.municioalitv.c1arinaton.on.ca) and would not mislead or disguise the site's
content. The following URL's were investigated:
Domain Name Current Ownership Status Expiry of
Ownershio
c1arington.ca Owned by Clarington Funds Inc. July 31, 2011
(mutual funds management
comoanv). Is active on intemet
clarington.org Owned by Clarington Funds Inc. December 15,
(mutual funds management 2005
company). Is NOT active on
internet
clarington.com Owned by Real Time Creative October 1, 2005
(Oshawa). Had discussions with
principles about transferring the
domain name but the requested
purchase price ($ 5,000) was
considered too hiah.
clarington.net Owned by the Municipality of April 14, 2006
Clarinaton
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REPORT NO.: COD-069-04
As can be seen in the above table, the "alternate" web addresses were limited to
the most common of suffixes.
CLARINGTON.NET
As tier 1 domain (I.e. has only one suffix - .net), this means that the webmaster
for clarington.net can control all sub-domains that use c1arington.net as a root. For
example, we can create the separate identity of www.mavor.clarinaton.net which
appears to the online visitor as a separate web site. In reality it is a sub-domain of
clarington.net and, when the link is clicked, the visitor is taken to
www.c1arinaton.neUhttodocs/mavor.html. By utilizing the advantages of sub-domains,
the municipal site can be re-engineered to reduce existing information congestion.
Since the Municipality controls the clarington.net domain, we can create as many
sub-domains as we want and have them point where ever we want. Using this
opportunity we can create the appearance of a community portal and involve all of our
municipal partners. For example, the Clarington Public Library could be
library.clarington.net; Clarington Board of Trade could be business.clarington.net; or the
Visual Arts Centre could be thearts.clarington.net. The benefit of this is that these
organizations maintain their existing web sites and domain names and they get the
added bonus of having a second URL which will potentially increase their standing on
many search engines and hopefully channel more trafficlvisitors to their site.
Internal to the Municipality, departments such as Planning, Community Services
and Building could have the appearance of their own web site without having to register
a domain name and increase the number of sites designed and maintained by the
Communications division. People could find Building information, for example, by
accessing the official municipal site (www.c1arinaton.net) or by entering
www.buildina.clarinaton.netin the address box of their browser. At this moment, these
sub-domains have not been created but it is reasonable to project that they could be in
place before the end of the first quarter in 2005.
SUMMARY
Over the years, there have been a number of complaints with regards to the
length of the Municipality's web address. Adopting clarington.net allows us to shorten
the address
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REPORT NO.: COD-069-04
significantly without having to change the site's actual location on the internet. In
addition, there is no interruption in access for those people who have currently
bookmarked the www.municpalitv.clarinaton.on.ca site or have business
cards/publications citing this address. The Municipality has two domain names that
point to the same site which means there is more than one way to find the Municipality
of Clarington on the internet.
At some point in the next year, Communications and IT will work to make a
similar adaptation to our existing email addresses. Subsequent correspondence to
Members of Council will be distributed when this action has been implemented and
tested.
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