Background
Over the last year, much attention has been given to the University's web presence. One issue raised on a regular basis is related to the names used in the web addresses – also called URLs – within the CSUN domain. Many of the addresses contain throwbacks to twenty-year old computer accounts and artifacts of early web techno-speak. These addresses, however, do not serve users of the CSUN web pages since they do not clearly represent the location and nature of the content.
To address this situation, we recommend a set of best practices for constructing the URLs of CSUN web sites. The goal of the recommendations is the creation of URLs that:
- are clearly identifiable with their associated web sites;
- are easy to read, type, and remember;
- use existing well-known or well-established forms of names;
- semantically identify the content and purpose of their associated web sites;
- follow adopted standards for the structure and naming conventions of URLs;
- are consistent with the overall CSUN web information architecture.