These standards and guidelines aim to (1) promote the use of the web to enhance university brand awareness, engage audiences, prompt action, advocate in favor of the university’s mission, and support administrative functions and student life activities; and (2) ensure that Ohio State consistently safeguards its data, resources, brand, and reputation, and complies with legal, regulatory, and contractual obligations.
University Websites Standards and Guidelines
The University Websites Standards and Guidelines establishes certain requirements and best practices for managing university websites on the osu.edu (excluding u.osu.edu sites), ohio-state.edu, and osumc.edu domains to support the implementation of the University Websites policy.
The Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) at Ohio State provides domain name service (DNS) hosting to university units. Using the DNS identifies the website as part of the Ohio State system and enables the university to govern DNS address management effectively.
Websites are primarily issued for subdomains in the osu.edu domain. The ohio-state.edu domain should only be used for back-end systems and infrastructure purposes. The osumc.edu domain is only used for purposes of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (WMC).
1. The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) approves osu.edu and ohio-state.edu subdomains and may consult the Web Governance Council regarding subdomain requests. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Information Technology and Marketing unit approves subdomains requests related to osumc.edu.
2. The following is the process for requesting an Ohio State subdomain:
- Eligibility: Staff, faculty, and student employees may select a name.osu.edu URL on behalf of a unit that is descriptive and relevant to the services provided by their website and meets the domain policy guidance above.
- Review priority: URLs will be reviewed and assigned. If a conflict over keywords arises, priority will be given in the following order: Academic Area/Research Area, University Initiative, and finally Business Unit.
- Request submission: Faculty, staff members, or student organizations fill out the online request form in the university IT Service Desk service catalog (go.osu.edu/url-request).
- Initial review: A notification is sent to OMC for review.
- Decision:
- a. Approve:
- i. If approved, the requester is asked to provide written sign-off by the department chair, director, dean, or supervisor.
- ii. The URL is then processed.
- b. Further review needed:
- i. If further review is required regarding the requested URL, OMC will schedule a meeting with the requester.
- ii. During the meeting, requesters will present the use-case for their requested URL.
- iii. Alternate names are suggested for the requester to use.
- iv. If a compromise cannot be met during this meeting, then the matter will be referred to the Web Governance Council for a review and a final determination.
- v. If the requester would like to proceed with referral to the Web Governance Council, the following steps are then taken:
- 1. Email notification of the URL dispute is forwarded to the requester's department chair, director, dean, or supervisor.
- 2. The Web Governance Council is notified.
- 3. Supporting information will be provided to the Web Governance Council from OMC and the requester.
- 4. During the regular Monthly Web Governance Meeting or via an emergency ad hoc meeting, the Web Governance Council will meet with the requester.
- 5. During the meeting with the requester, Web Governance Council members vote on the requested URL.
- 6. The request either will be approved and processed, or the request will be denied with supporting reason. Applicants denied a specific URL by the Web Governance Council may appeal the decision in writing to the Chief Information Officer of OTDI and SVP of the Office of Marketing and Communications.
- a. Approve:
3. All Ohio State subdomain requests must comply with the following requirements. Failure to comply may result in the removal of hosting services or corrective actions, as determined by the Web Governance Council.
- Subdomains must be assigned under the specific unit owning the website and must also be authorized by the technical manager.
- Subdomains may not redirect to external websites that are not managed by Ohio State.
- Subdomains may not include names of faculty, staff, or students unless it is an approved honorific name.
- Subdomains must not be created to be used as URL redirects. For example, reserving “parentportal.osu.edu” and redirecting to “parents.osu.edu” would not be appropriate. However, retired subdomains and archived sites can be redirected.
4. The following types of university subdomains will not be approved. This list may be expanded upon by the Web Governance Council in consultation with OMC.
- Honorifics, any name that is or is a derivative of an employee name, unless such honorific naming complies with the Naming University Spaces and Entities policy;
- Inappropriate words, acronyms, or combinations of letters and numbers that are known to suggest inappropriate words;
- Certain words or combinations of letters or numbers that may be reserved due to their common external use or common language usage; and
- Words or combinations of letters or numbers that may create confusion with existing subdomains.
- Other subdomain categories not listed here within the discretion of the Web Governance Council in consultation with OMC.
Once a university subdomain request has been approved, the web lead must ensure the domain is listed in the Digital Inventory System.
- Web leads are responsible for the upkeep of records. Access the Digital Inventory System to add website details through university myRME (also called Service Now or IT Service Desk).
- If a web lead needs to be assigned or changed, or for general questions, use the Digital Inventory System form.
If you retire a website, be sure to update the record in the Digital Inventory System as retired.
For questions on updating the Digital Inventory System, contact the Office of Marketing and Communications.
Websites should not exist indefinitely without regular assessment. Web leads and technical managers should evaluate whether to continue maintaining a website or begin the process of sunsetting it based on the following factors:
Relevance and Purpose
- Outdated content: Does the website contain outdated or irrelevant information that no longer serves its intended audience?
- Shifting priorities: Has the mission or focus of the department, program, or initiative changed, making the site less aligned with current goals?
- Redundancy: Is the website duplicating content or services already offered elsewhere?
Usage and Engagement
- Low traffic: Is the website consistently receiving low levels of traffic or engagement, suggesting that users no longer find it useful or necessary?
- Declining user engagement: Are there few or no interactions (e.g., forms submitted, inquiries, downloads) on the website?
- Feedback and complaints: Are users regularly reporting issues with the website, such as poor usability or broken links, and the site is no longer a priority to update?
Technical Issues and Maintenance
- Technical debt: Is the website increasingly difficult or expensive to maintain due to outdated technology or a lack of resources to update it?
- Security concerns: Is the website vulnerable to security risks that can’t be easily mitigated without significant investment?
- Platform limitations: Is the website hosted on an obsolete platform or technology that no longer supports necessary updates or enhancements?
Legal and Compliance Considerations
- Data retention policies: Are there legal or compliance requirements around the retention of data or content that must be considered before removal? Reference Ohio State Records Management for more information.
- Accessibility issues: Is the site not meeting current Digital Accessibility policy requirements, and if so, is it still feasible or necessary to update it to remain compliant?
Communication and Transition
- Consolidation: Are there opportunities to integrate the website’s content or services into another existing, more updated site?
- Stakeholder notification: Have all relevant stakeholders (e.g., content owners, users, departments) been informed of the decision to sunset the website?
- Content migration or archiving: Have you identified how critical content will be archived, migrated, or transferred to other systems to avoid data loss or disruption?
- Redirects and URLs: Have you set up proper redirects for the website’s URL to guide users to a more relevant page or resource?
- Update the Digital Inventory System of university websites: Once a redirect has been implemented, remove the record and add the retired website URL to “Redirected URLs” for the new website in the Digital Inventory System of university websites.
University websites must display a way to contact the site’s responsible unit in the site footer. There are two methods recommended to collect contact submissions:
- Web contact form: Websites that generally receive 10 or more contact submissions per week should capture data by submission type (see below) using a Qualtrics or other type of form to collect submission data, and then triage submissions as appropriate.
- Accessibility concerns/complaints: These are priorities and must be reported to the ADA Digital Accessibility Center (accessibility@osu.edu), responded to within one (1) business day, and addressed within 10 business days per the Digital Accessibility policy.
- Questions: These include customer service and support questions where a response is requested/expected.
- Web feedback: These include comments, bugs and broken link fixes where a response is not necessary.
- Email address: Websites that generally receive fewer than 10 contact submissions per week can maintain a ‘mailto’ email address to managesubmissions (examples: titleix@osu.edu, brand@osu.edu). Do not refer to webmaster, as the term is outdated.
Web contact form best practices:
1. Use an automatic reply to provide user confirmation.
2. Manage expectations about response time.
3. Follow through and respond to messages in a timely manner.
4. Test response procedures regularly.
5. Recommend self-help guidance before or after the inquiry response.
6. Keep information collected simple but collect email address as a point of contact.
7. Include short legal guidance referring to privacy data collection practice.
8. Comply with website footer requirements in the University Websites policy, Procedure III.C.4. page 4.
Use of Ohio State's name or logo indicates agreement to abide by the university standards set within the university’s Brand Guidelines, particularly the Logos and Name section.
- The university logo is for use by any university academic or administrative unit. It may not be modified in any way.
- The logo may not be used on an individual's personal website.
- Use of the Athletics and Alumni Association logos are reserved for use only by those organizations.
- The use of any other university trademarks requires review and approval via brandcenter@osu.edu.
Websites need to be accessible to individuals with disabilities. Not only is it a policy and legal requirement, it’s the right thing to do.
Website accessibility is determined by conformance with the Ohio State Minimum Digital Accessibility Standards (MDAS) and is governed under the Digital Accessibility policy.
Here are the basic requirements that web leads, developers, and technical managers should know:
- Most university websites require a full manual accessibility evaluation by an ADA-approved evaluator, as well as remediation of accessibility issues identified in the evaluation, prior to the implementation and update of websites and new user interface functionality on those websites. See the “Ohio State Built” Implement/Upgrade Framework for exclusions to this requirement.
- Developers are required to perform limited accessibility testing when developing and updating user interface elements on all university websites and applications. This is in addition to the full manual evaluation requirement. This testing should be performed before changes are merged into the testing branch/server. See the MDAS Developer Checklist code repository for more information.
- Web leads are encouraged to install the Editoria11y content accessibility checker in their Content Management System (CMS) to assist content contributors with authoring accessible content. Editoria11y has pre-built modules for Drupal and WordPress and can be integrated easily with other CMSs.
- Digital Accessibility Skills Training is offered free-of-charge to university employees and is required by university policy for all employees who acquire, develop, or deliver digital information or digital services. The Accessible Web Development curriculum on BuckeyeLearn is the recommended training for developers.
- Units should work to “shift left” in their development processes. This means moving accessibility review and evaluation as early and as often in the development process as possible, including in the wireframing and design stages. This practice reduces the very time consuming and expensive process of accessibility remediation after a site is built.
Web leads, developers, and technical managers are encouraged to contact their unit’s Digital Accessibility Coordinator if they have any questions.
Websites should be optimized for search engines. This improves visibility in search results pages (SERP) and provides a better user experience for mobile-phone visitors. Adapting seamlessly to various screen sizes and resolutions provides an optimal user experience across all mobile devices and for people with disabilities.
Maintaining an optimized website includes:
- Ensuring public-facing webpages are indexed by search engines.
- Including a unique, relevant title and meta description for each page to enhance search engine visibility and accessibility. Titles should not exceed 60 characters. Descriptions should not exceed 160 characters.
- Create clean and descriptive URLs that reflect the content of the page. Use hyphens to separate words and keep URLs concise. Use folder and page-level structures when appropriate to structure content and help users understand the organization of the site. See the URL guidelines for more information.
- Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your content, headings, and metadata. Do not “keyword stuff” or use keyword targets unnaturally and in large amounts throughout the page, which can negatively impact search rankings, as well as damage site reputation and authority.
- Use appropriate header tags (H1, H2, etc.) to structure content and improve readability, page organization, and accessibility for both users and search engines.
- Add descriptive alt text to images, aiding search engines in understanding the content and improving accessibility for visually impaired users.
- Add text transcriptions for video and audio content to enhance findability by search engines and ensure equal access for visually impaired and hard-of-hearing users.
- Optimize and compress images and video assets to reduce loading times and conserve bandwidth. While there is no specific time requirement that pages should be fully rendered, web managers and developers should be optimizing assets and monitoring page load speed.
This page last updated 6/03/2025.