Did you notice yesterday morning that RURAL.gov (The Rural Partners website) was no longer online? By the time I got a minute to look into it, the site looked like it was back, but it was changed. Many of the links from the homepage were no longer there. Also, and this is nerdy but worth knowing, the domain name was “masking” the address/URL. That means when you look at the address bar it always reads “https://www.rural.gov/” it doesn’t include those long file names – such as https://blandinonbroadband.org/2024-minnesota-broadband-county-profiles-from-aitkin-to-yellow-medicine/, which links to the MN County Profiles on this blog.

I was interested in what was missing on the “new” site. I didn’t go through word for word – but below is a sitemap of the “old” pages. The bold links are one that are hard to find on the current site. I found the “old” page through one of my favorite tools, The WayBack Machine, which archives many, if not most, of the websites out there. The links below lead to the archive on the WayBack Machine. It’s a snapshot in time.

Here’s a trick. The pages on the “new” site are not gone. There just aren’t any links to them on the website. But when I show you a link from the WayBack Machine, you will be able to see what the “old,” full address was/is:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250118114405/https://www.rural.gov/help-for-rural-communities/upcoming-events – if you copy and paste from the second http… it may work to show the “live” version. It works right now as I’m typing – but that might change if they take the site down again.

I wanted to share this for a couple of reasons. First, because there may be info on this page that is useful to readers. If that’s true you may want to print it out or otherwise save the info. Second, as a librarian, I can’t pass up this teachable moment. This might be a skill you can use again!

Also, as I’m looking, the search works on the site. So, if there’s something you know you want to find, you can search here.

Home

• About
• Help for Rural Communities (no real page)
  • Programs and Opportunities
  • Tribal Programs
  • Resources
  • Upcoming Events
• Community Networks
• Rural Connections Blog
• NPR News
• Give Feedback (doesn’t work)