BusinessLink info replacement launched

New consolidated www.gov.uk website goes live as first step towards a single domain

The replacement for business info website BusinessLink and Directgov, simply called Gov.uk, went live Wednesday, replacing the public January beta and its updates.

The new cross-government website is intended to make it easier to interact with the UK government online for all purposes. Services and information have not been copied across, according to the Cabinet Office, but "carefully examined and redesigned", taking user feedback on the betas into consideration.

"Bringing this information together into one single website will help reduce the financial and administrative impact of running multiple government websites," an official announcement said.

The online content of all government departments as well as many other public bodies will be consolidated into the new Gov.uk website by the end of March 2014. Meanwhile, anyone typing in the URL for BusinessLink or Directgov will be automatically redirected, according to the announcement.

Directgov had been in operation some eight years, according to the Cabinet Office. The new site is expected to cost £70m a year less than the total cost of running both Directgov and BusinessLink.

Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service (GDS), which built the site, said in a statement: "Moving to the single domain with the user-focused, iterative approach we have adopted will result in better services for users and substantial savings for government."