photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.

The City of Lawrence will shift its online domain from www.lawrenceks.org to www.lawrenceks.gov, with the change going live in 2026.

Brian Thomas, the city’s Chief Technology Officer, said in a press release that because .gov domains are managed by federal authorities, those domains are more secure and harder to spoof, which will provide more online safety.

“This provides an extra layer of protection for residents accessing city services online,” Thomas said.

Along with the safety aspects, the city said it will improve search-ability by making it easier to find official city resources online, and it will assure the public that they are accessing an authentic City of Lawrence site with the .gov domain.

The rollout to the new domain will happen over the next year, with the new .gov site officially going live on Jan. 5, 2026. During that time, all emails sent to current @lawrenceks.org addresses will automatically forward to the new @lawrenceks.gov addresses throughout 2025 and visitors to www.lawrenceks.org will be redirected to the new www.lawrenceks.gov domain during the transition.

The Lawrence Kansas Police Department website and team email addresses will also transition to .gov on the same timeline as the City’s transition.