There are a lot of changes that we’ve made to improve the website, some you can see and some you can’t. But first, let’s go over why we needed a new website and what features are improved. You can check out the new website here.

Here's what will be different with the new GeoNet website

1. Our old website was reliant on older technology and just wasn’t meeting current standards required for GeoNet. The last time we did such a major overhaul of the website was in 2012, that was five years ago! That is ages in the Tech World. We must ensure 100 percent service all the time and, with the older standards, that service level was becoming harder and harder to ensure with the outdated website.

2. We've brought back the earthquake map on the home page. The popular “big map” dates to before we launched the last website in 2012. The old big map that showed exactly where earthquakes had occurred was slow and made the page difficult to load.

3. The design is cleaner and easier to navigate. We’ve also gotten rid of the separate info website, where we had our news and stories, and have merged it with the new site so you’ll only have to go to one place now.

4. Mobile accessibility on smart phones and tablets on the old website was a big issue. So, we’ve fixed that.

5. The information that our old website provided was outdated, so we’ve reviewed it and are in the process of re-writing some of the older information.

6. It was difficult to find all the hazards we monitor, specifically landslides. Try finding landslide information on the old website; it is not that easy! So, we’ve added it onto the navigation bar.

7. Letting you see the back end: now, when you click on an earthquake, you can check out our new “technical” tab. This tab gives you a lot more information on the event, like how many stations we used to locate the earthquake

8. Volcanic Alert Bulletins are now a lot easier to find. Our volcanic alert bulletins are one of the most important pieces of information we put out and under the “news” category on the old website, these often got buried in all the other stories. Now it is easier to find and locate specific Volcanic Alert Bulletins.

9. Felt reports can now be filled out from the home page directly and we’ve added a permanent link to Felt Detailed, if you want to provide more feedback.

10. You can find QuakeSearch, Earthquake Catalogue, and Slow Slip information a lot faster on this website. It often took a lot of digging around into the old website to find those services.

Updates for our technical users

If you were using the old website, you’d probably agree that finding important data streams were difficult to find. Now data has a much better defined section and it is easier to find information you are looking for. Also, you can access our GitHub directly from the homepage now, if you are that way inclined.

If you don’t like the new website, don’t panic!

Now, we don’t expect this new website to be perfect, and we know that no website is ever finished! Take a test drive of the website and let us know your thoughts here.

We’ll be drawing the prizes at the end of June, for those who complete the survey (hint: it involves this t-shirt, as well as the kitten/volcano one. Your choice).