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Part of Compliance

Domains and subdomains

Naming conventions for domains and subdomains on Government of Alberta (GoA) websites and applications.

Top-level domains

Alberta.ca is the primary, top-level domain and website for the Government of Alberta (GoA).

Unless approved by Communications and Public Engagement (CPE), the following types of naming conventions for program and services web content and marketing materials must be used:

  • alberta.ca
  • a marketing URL or web page URL on Alberta.ca (alberta.ca/saferoads or alberta.ca/curriculum or alberta.ca/forest-industry)

New domain names

Expired, top-level GoA domains are valuable to private entities due to historical links from other government websites, requiring us to continually renew custom domains to avoid phishing and other security issues.

In order to avoid risk, cost and maintenance of domains, we do not register new, top-level domains.

Subdomains

Subdomains are necessary for application hosting but should not be used for external communications. Marketing and promotional material should send users to the content on Alberta.ca (alberta.ca/application-name), where applications can be accessed by users.

Applications should be registered as a subdomain with the following type of naming convention – applychildcaresubsidy.alberta.ca.

Separate domains for applications, such as albertafilm.ca, are not accepted.

Public facing URLs for systems and applications should:

  • convey the service function from a user perspective – for example, https://servicedogs.alberta.ca/
  • be easy to understand, easy to read, easy to type and easy to share
  • be written in all lower case so words cannot be confused
  • avoid acronyms
  • avoid articles (a, an, the) or other redundant words, for example (apply-child-care-subsidy) instead of (apply-for-a-child-care-subsidy)
  • avoid antiquated words or abbreviations, such as “my”, “online” or “e-“, “portal”

Contact and approvals

You must get approval from CPE before proceeding with new, proposed subdomains.

Approvals are also needed when seeking any exemption from the domain and subdomain standards mentioned above.

Contact [email protected] for further questions and about subdomain registration.