CONWAY — If you’ve logged onto Conway’s website in the last week, you may have been startled to find the town’s new design, which mirrors the websites of neighboring Franklin County towns.
Town Administrator Veronique Blanchard said the impetus for redesigning the website, which launched Nov. 1, was to streamline access for both the public and the town staff that use it.
“The whole point is to make it easy for people to find things,” Blanchard said. “I can’t tell you how much easier it is now.”
The town kept it local when searching for a designer and host, too, ultimately choosing to partner with Greenfield-based Montague WebWorks, which also hosts websites for Greenfield, Montague, Shelburne and several other towns and departments in Franklin and Hampshire counties. The town’s previous website was hosted by WordPress.
“We went through the pros and cons and went with Montague WebWorks,” Blanchard said. “They’re absolutely wonderful.”
Beyond the aesthetic changes, Conway’s new website is more secure because it is a .gov website, rather than the previous address of townofconway.com. A .gov website can only be hosted by a government entity, and has additional security measures, according to the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Blanchard said she is a big cybersecurity advocate and that transitioning to a “more secure” website is a plus for everyone.
“It didn’t make sense to me that we were a .com to begin with because we’re not a commercial entity,” Blanchard explained, adding that .gov is “the standard.”
Conway’s new website can be found at conwayma.gov.
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.