County unveils 'smarter' Web site

County unveils 'smarter' Web site
By Danny Bernardini
Article Launched: 08/19/2008

Visitors of Solano County's Web site will soon be treated to a more visually stimulating and search-friendly page than in the past.

County staff is still fixing some of the bugs to the site launched Monday, but it will be fully functioning in the next week or so, said Steve Pierce, Solano County public information officer.

"It's now at a point where we can evolve forward," Pierce said. "There are 19,000 pages that had to be transferred. There will be a few kinks. It's a smart system that's going to get smarter."

The Solano County Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead for the site upgrade about six months ago, and got a preview of the upgrade at the Aug. 12 meeting. The previous site was predominately text, with the only graphics being the county logo, pictures of the five supervisors and a picture of the government center in Fairfield.

The new site features several photos, feature articles, a variety of graphics and an improved search feature aimed at quickly answering basic questions from the public.

Ira Rosenthal, chief informational officer, said the old county Web site held a ton of information, but the average Web surfer couldn't find it. He also told the board the page had looked the same for about the last eight years.

"If you search for 'marriage,' you are going to get a whole lot of irrelevant information. All you want to do is find out how to find a marriage license. Good luck to you," Rosenthal told the board.

"If you don't have clues or bread crumbs, you are never going to find it."

He also said the new site would feature a new engine that will allow individual departments to continually update their sections, which will help eliminate the "stagnant" content previously found in some areas.

"What's not necessarily apparent is how difficult to maintain and update the old site was," Rosenthal said. "The new management system is key to keeping it fresh and up to date."