I saw a related post, but I need to be 100% sure that would apply in this case: https://serverfault.com/questions/161842/how-would-i-go-about-getting-a-domain-like-lu-reTry looking www.courts.state.va.us up on GoDaddy or somewhere, to see if the domain is available, and it won't work. In particular, http://info.his.com/services/domaincheck/domain_check.html says its bad syntax. But then if you try courts.state.va.us, that doesn't work either. Neither does state.va.us. But the site is clearly there: http://www.courts.state.va.us/The reason? It doesn't just end in .us, it ends in .va.us.I don't want to say exactly what domain we're trying to get on here, but we're having trouble requesting it with GoDaddy, and when we go to different lookup sites to see why, none of them are really accepting the input. They're always either saying the syntax is invalid, trying to correct typos in the domain name, or something else like that.I don't know a whole lot about this sort of thing. How do I punch in a domain like that at one of these websites and 1) see if it's available, and 2) request it if it is. Do we have to specifically go through the government agency we're working for?  Thanks!
How do you check on domain availability when it ends in ga.us, ny.us, or something else like that?
domains;subdomain;url
State and locality domains within .us are not registered through the usual domain registration channels. These were delegated to various state and local government agencies through the process described in RFC 1480, and in order to register such a domain, you need to locate and contact the delegate for instructions.Note that the .us TLD nexus requirements still apply, though if you're looking for one of these domains, it's very likely you already qualify.Also note that since virtually none of these delegates do domain registration as a core business, (they're mostly IT departments of government agencies) you should expect higher fees and manual paperwork processes.To locate the correct delegate, just run a whois query. For example:whois state.va.us # State of Virginiawhois mil.wi.us # Milwaukee, Wisconsin