Navigation & Site Structure

Maintaining a functional structure for your website is important for visitors to your website. For any website structure-related requests outlined below, contact Ashley Arnold, information architect in the Department of Digital Strategy, arnold AT_TOWSON.

Changing a Page Title

A page title should summarize the page content. Minor page title changes — involving changing a word but not the purpose of the page — are fine and can be made by request. If you wish to repurpose an existing webpage by adding entirely different content and a new page title, you should instead request to add a new page.

Adding a Page

When requesting to add a new webpage to your site, please be prepared to provide the following: 

• page title
• page location (where you would like to add the page)
• page purpose
• meta description (a concise page description) — the meta description is added at the code level and the first 160 characters with spaces are what displays as the preview text on Google search results. Include "Towson University" as appropriate, but not as the leading text.

It is also a good idea to submit a draft of the new page content. This will help us determine if the requested page title and page location makes sense within the context of the larger university website. A draft of the page content will also help us confirm that the content doesn’t already exist within a different section of the university site.

Deleting a Page

There are two important things to consider before deleting a webpage:

• Is there critical content that needs to be moved to another page?
• Are other webpages linking to your page? 

If necessary, Digital Strategy can assist in determining the most appropriate webpage in your section for critical page content. 

When you request that a page be deleted from your website, Digital Strategy will generate a report from within Modern Campus CMS. The report will show if other pages within the university website are linking to the page you wish to delete.

If there are pages within your site section linking to the page you wish to delete, you will need to remove those links from those webpages. You might also be asked to contact other site sections to remove their links to the page you wish to delete.

Restructuring Your Website

Restructuring your entire website (or large portions of your site) typically involves a discussion with Digital Strategy to confirm all requested changes, discuss timing, and determine if there are any other considerations. If you are considering a site restructure, please contact Ashley Arnold, arnold AT_TOWSON.

Low-Performing Pages

Webpages that don't meet certain requirements for page performance may be deleted from the website. These pages can affect overall site performance and search engine optimization, as well as obstruct a user's ability to find the content they're looking for.

Low-performing webpages generally meet at least two of the following criteria:

• Traffic: Webpage has fewer than 100 sessions (equivalent to unique pageviews) within the past year.
• Content age: Webpage content has not been updated in at least a year.
• Content relevance: Webpage contains content that is inaccurate or irrelevant to primary website goals. 
• Links: Webpage has few or no backlinks, either within www.towson.edu or from other websites.

Exceptions to the above criteria include webpages that are less than one year old, are critical to university communications or inherently require long-term access (e.g. news articles and magazine webpages).