Last year, the United States General Services Administration (GSA) launched the Go.USA.gov URL shortener at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C. Today, USA.gov soft-launched a way for citizens to create shortened USA.gov URLs as well. Whenever someone uses Bit.ly (or any service that uses Bit.ly, like Tweetdeck or the Twitter app for iPhone) to shorten a .gov or .mil URL, the link will be converted to a short 1.USA.gov.

For those feeling a bit dizzied by acronyms, URL stands for “uniform resource locator.” A URL is the Web address, like, say, govfresh.com, that a citizen types into a Web browser to go to a site. Many URLs are long, which makes sharing them on Twitter or other mobile platforms awkward. As a result, many people share shortened versions. One of the challenges that face users is that, unless a citizen uses one of several tools to view what the actual hyperlink is below the link, he or she might be led astray or exposed to malicious code that was included in the original link.

This new service will make it easier for people to know when a short URL will direct them to a trustworthy official U.S. government site. “The whole idea is to improve people’s experience when dealing with government information online,” said Jed Sundwall, a contractor for USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov. “We keep USA.gov in the domain for usability reasons. It’s crystal clear, worldwide, that 1.USA.gov URLs point to trustworthy governmentt information.” Adriel Hampton talked with Jed Sundwall about Go.USA.gov on Gov 2.0 Radio last year. For more on how Go.USA.gov URLs work, watch Michele Chronister’s presentation from the last year’s Gov 2.0 Expo, below:

The new shortener began appearing online this Friday. According to Sundwall, ABC senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper was the first to use it when he linked to a PDF containing new unemployment information at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics: “For those asking follow-ups on unemployment, here’s the BLS link http://1.usa.gov/XUtpL”

Tapper is not alone, as many others have used the 1.USA.gov URL shortener simply by using the tools there already knew. “The beauty is that Jake used it without knowing he was using it,” said Sundwall. “We’re trying making it easy for anyone to identify .gov information as it’s being shared online,” said Sundwall.

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1.USA.gov FAQ

Following are the GSA’s answers to frequently asked questions about 1.USA.gov.

Why did we use 1.USA.gov when go.gov or 1.us.gov would be shorter?
Including USA.gov in the shortened URLs makes them more intuitive and meaningful to users worldwide. Many Internet users may not realize that .gov is the exclusive top-level domain of the U.S. government, and USA.gov adds valuable context to the short URLs.

What if I don’t want a 1.USA.gov URL?

You can replace 1.USA.gov with bit.ly or j.mp. For example 1.USA.gov/12345 will go to the same place as j.mp/12345 or bit.ly/12345.

Is Bit.ly owned by the Libyan government?

No. Bit.ly (@bitly is an American-owned company based in New York City. While .ly is the top level Internet domain assigned to Libya, this does not mean that Libya has any stake at all in Bit.ly, the ability to access Bit.ly’s data, or the ability to control Bit.ly’s servers. On the Quora website, Bit.ly’s CEO has addressed what would happen to Bit.ly if Libya were to shut off Internet access in Libya. Regardless, we use .gov URLs, and none of the servers that power this service (or any of Bit.ly’s servers) are located in Libya.

Who uses a similar service with Bit.ly?

C-SPAN: http://cs.pn
NY Times: http://nyti.ms
NPR: http://n.pr
Facebook: http://fb.me
Pepsi: http://pep.si
Economist: http://econ.st

What does this mean for Go.USA.gov?

We will still maintain Go.USA.gov as an option for government employees to use as a URL shortener, and Go.USA.gov URLs will continue to work.

Correction: an earlier version of this story referred to the new shortener as 1.GO.USA.gov, as opposed to the shorter version. We regret the error.