Domain and URL Naming Standards

CMS URL naming best practices are as follows:

• Use lowercase letters
• Use hyphens to separate each word instead of underscores
• Keep URLs short yet descriptive
• Avoid dates or years unless permanent

Changing folder names and subdomain names is a significant undertaking and should only occur when there is a compelling and permanent institutional need.

Do Not Replicate Your Org Chart

Website locations within the CMS should reflect the service or content provided, not the University's org chart. UND reporting structures, department names, and administrative oversight change regularly. URLs should remain stable through those changes whenever possible.

Search Equity

Although properly implemented 301 redirects preserve much of the site's search equity, search rankings and traffic fluctuate while search engines process the change. Recovery may take several months.

Broken Links

Anytime a folder or page in the CMS is moved or renamed, the URLs change. Links within the CMS will update automatically when they use a Dependency Manager (DM) tag, but links from external websites and other UND systems, such as Campus Connection or the Course Catalog, will break and must be updated manually.

A URL change also can affect things like:

• PDF links
• Marketing campaigns
• Email signatures
• Social media profiles
• Bookmarks and saved links

Units may request marketing (vanity) URLs in the format UND.edu/your-name. These URLs provide short memorable links for advertising, print materials, and presentations. Marketing URLs are redirects that point visitors to the actual destination page. This allows the marketing URL to be simple and memorable while the underlying page can exist anywhere within the UND website.

Marketing URLs are approved provided the requested URL is not already in use. UIT will create two versions of marketing URLs:

• Hyphenated URLs for easier reading in print: UND.edu/open-house
• Non-hyphenated URLs that are easier to communicate verbally: UND.edu/openhouse

Units may request marketing (vanity) URLs that present as subdomains (e.g., nebula.UND.edu or events.UND.edu) for branding, marketing, or user experience purposes only when the service is not hosted within the CMS.

They may function as redirects or aliases to content hosted elsewhere. Because vanity URLs are independent of the CMS architecture, their creation, management, and lifecycle must be coordinated through UIT to ensure consistency, prevent naming conflicts, and maintain long-term ownership and support.

A redirect sends visitors from one URL to another. Redirects should be created whenever an important page or folder is moved, renamed, or removed.

Redirects help:

• Prevent broken links
• Preserve bookmarks and links from other websites
• Allow search engines to transfer ranking signals from the old URL to the new one
• Maintain links in printed materials, emails, and marketing campaigns

Although search engines eventually update their indexes, they may continue sending visitors to the previous URL for several weeks or longer. Without a redirect, those visitors will encounter a "Page Not Found" error.

UND establishes subdomains only for its primary academic units represented by a dean. The exception is campus.UND.edu, which was established to host internal content targeted primarily for faculty and staff.

Academic subdomains include:

• aero.UND.edu
• arts-sciences.UND.edu
• business.UND.edu
• cnpd.UND.edu
• education.UND.edu
• engineering.UND.edu
• law.UND.edu
• library.UND.edu
• med.UND.edu

Some organizations maintain separate public domains while also participating in the University's CMS. These organizations had long-established websites before migrating into the CMS. Examples include:

• alumni.UND.edu → undalumni.org
• eerc.UND.edu → undeerc.org
• UND.edu/ndsbdc → ndsbdc.org

These are mapped domains, meaning the website is managed within UND's CMS, but visitors see the organization's established public .org domain instead of a UND.edu address.

Requests for new or revised subdomains are generally not approved outside the University's established academic structure. Instead, new CMS websites should be created within the most appropriate existing subdomain using folders.

While creating a new subdomain may appear to be simple, it creates a permanent technical asset that must be supported separately. Every additional subdomain requires separate configuration, monitoring, reporting, and maintenance on the server and in systems like the CMS, Google Analytics, Siteimprove and SME Rush. This creates an administrative burden with no tangible benefit.