We are making changes to our website to help you find information faster and easier by taking advantage of best web practices and new technologies.

Changes You Will See

• You can find information faster.
  • You'll find what you are looking for quicker when you use our search box.
  • Browsing will lead you to better-organized information.
• Our website is now organized around environmental topics instead of our organizational structure.
  • Looking for information on ecosystems research? the Puget Sound? pesticide registration?  We've got it.
• We have rewritten our web pages to focus on specific audiences and their top tasks.
  For example:

  • Audiences – concerned citizens, regulated business community, environmental groups, scientists, state government officials and other stakeholders; and
  • Top Tasks - learn how to apply for a grant, or how to test for radon in your home.
• You can view web pages on mobile devices more easily.
  • Information will automatically adjust itself to fit your screen regardless of whether you use a mobile device or a larger desktop computer screen (called ‘responsive web design’).
  • One-third of our web visitors access our website from mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.
• You get better search results.
  • We now use a world-class search engine and are tagging our information with metadata (which summarizes the information on a web page) for faster and better search results.
  • Seventy percent of our Web visitors find our information by searching.
• You have more browsing options.
  • Visit our home page (www.epa.gov) to learn about current topics, news and more.
  • Review the list of our website topics such as Clean Power Plan, Community Health, Lead and others.
  • Use the A-Z Index which contains frequently used terms and keywords, and a list of popular topics.
  • Browse ‘Learn the Issues,’ ‘Science and Technology,’ ‘Laws and Regulations’ or ‘About EPA’ web areas.
• You can find historic information in our archive.
  • Can’t find what you are looking for on www.epa.gov? Then search archive.epa.gov to find historic information.
  • Archived materials are no longer updated, but are still a valuable reference resource especially for students and researchers.

New Technology Makes These Improvements Possible

We are now using a web content management system (WebCMS) to manage our website.

• The WebCMS makes it faster and easier for us to post and update information and for web visitors to find what they are looking for on our website.
• ‘Responsive web design’ makes it easier for web visitors to view information on their mobile devices.  

URLs Will Change as These Improvements are Made

URLs (web page addresses) will be different for many web pages on www.epa.gov.

• Web pages that have been moved into the WebCMS will have new URLs, and links to these pages may break.
• Also, your bookmarks may no longer work for the same reason.
• Our new “Page Not Found” notification will help you find what you are looking for by providing suggested search terms, links to our A-Z index, and other helpful links.