Metadata and Folder Structure
What is metadata?
Metadata is information about a web page that search engines, like Google, use to serve up the best web pages relevant to a user's search terms. You want to provide metadata that best describes the content on each web page so that search enginFolder Structure
The new website structure will be based on the departmental or academic structure of the University. All web pages will be located on the Matrix server (matrix.scranton.edu).For example:
In the CMS, the Athletics website will be located under matrix.scranton.edu folder. The URL will be matrix.scranton.edu/athletics
In the CMS, the University Ministries website will be located under matrix.scranton.edu folder, then the Student Life folder called “studentlife”. The URL will be matrix.scranton.edu/studentlife/ministries
Note: when advertising a website, please use the redirect address provided that begins with “www”. For example, to advertise the Athletics website, use www.scranton.edu/athletics
If you do not have a redirect and would need one, please inform Sarah Johnson and Valarie Wolff when your department website is ready to go live.
Metadata in CMS
Display Name: a short name of the page or folder. Should be concise (4-5 words max). If possible, do not use the same phrase as the folder's display name. Do not use "homepage", "welcome", "website", or "webpage" unless it is relevant to the content of the page.
Title: the title of the page (for folders, Title will be the same as the Display Name). Should not exceed 65 characters. Page titles should be unique for every page. If it the page is a news article, use the article title only.
Page example:
Display Name: Name of Page (ie: "Research" or "Faculty and Staff" )
Title: (academic) Research: Biology Department: The University of Scranton
(non-academic) Reunion: Alumni: The University of Scranton
It is important to ensure your Page Title isn't too long, if you have a page that is buried within your department website, use the following model: (Page Title): (Department Name): The University of Scranton
News Articles can break this rule and merely use the article's title as the Page Title.
Folder example:
Display Name: Electrical Enginnering
Title: Electrical Engineering
Description: description of the page. Usually one or two sentences from the beginning of an article or a brief summary of what the page contains.
Keywords: 4-5 unique words or phrases about the page content. DO NOT use "University of Scranton", "Scranton", or any variations or misspelled versions of them.
System Name: system/file name of the page or folder, used in the page URL. Letters, numbers and dashes only. NO spaces or punctuation.
Uses for Metadata
Page and folder metadata is used throughout the website and the CMS. Here are the most important areas that utilize metadata:Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs show the user their location in the website structure. Breadcrumbs use the Display Name of the current page and its ancestral folders. "Press Releases" is the parent folder of "May 2009", which is the parent folder of the page "Twelve to Receive O'Hara Award" article.
Example: University Ministries main page
The University Ministries main page belongs in the (parent) folder “ministries”, which has a display name of “University Ministries.” The folder, “ministries,” belongs in the folder “studentlife,” which has a display name of “Student Life.”
Without the display name, the breadcrumbs may not complete the page’s folder “trail”.
Page Title
The page title is literally the title of the page that appears at the top of your web browser. Search engines use this to caption pages in their search results.
Without the title, the page title would be “Untitled” or “New Page” which would appear in internal or external searches. This is undesirable because it obviously does not describe the page content and the page will not rank high on search results.
