The Dot-Gov Rejects: The 1,000 Government Websites Shuttered Over Past 10 Years
Some of the websites clearly never caught on.
Below are some of the standouts among the more than 1,000 website names the government scratched sometime over the past 10 years.
The domains each existed at one point between 2004 and 2014. Click here for a full list of shuttered domains.
Collaborators at the government transparency website MuckRock retrieved the list this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.
For the most part, the websites were axed by the agency that had requested them. It’s likely many of the domains were never inhabited or were consolidated as part of an ongoing governmentwide effort to streamline federal operations.
But some names perhaps just never caught on...
The “What Were They Thinking?” Category
- AmeriCorpse.gov
- Clan.gov
- CouldIHaveLupus.gov
- Dix.gov
- WhiteNoseSyndrome.gov (It's a bat disease)
Post-Sept. 11-Themed Domains
- DefendAmerica.gov
- PatriotAct.gov
- PreventWMD.gov
- Privacy.gov
- USACivilLiberties.gov
- WMD.gov
Names that Might Work Better as Sentences
- DontTestTheWatersIowa.Gov
- CommToStrengthenSocSec.gov
- FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.gov
- DisasterRecoveryWorkingGroup.gov
Asking To Be Defaced
- GlobalWarming.gov
- MicrosoftAntiTrust.gov
Websites We're Sad to See Go
- GirlPower.gov
- WomansHealth.gov
- 4Girls.gov
- 4Women.gov
- FirstLady.gov
Retire This List Now!
- Ready2Retire.gov
- Ready4Retirement.gov
- ReadyRetirement.gov
- RetireEZ.gov
- Retirement4U.gov