Overview
Many of the public pages in Terra Dotta involve URLs with long identification parameters making them difficult to provide to site visitors through email and printed materials. Terra Dotta software provides the friendly URL functionality to create shorter and less complex URLs for your site's pages to accommodate these needs.
Friendly URLs are created in four distinct locations in Terra Dotta software:
- Programs > Program Builder > Brochure editor
- Site > Site Builder > Home/Content page editor
- Site > Document Center > Document editor
- Site Admin > Site Builder > Friendly URLs
Whenever an admin is editing a program brochure, site content page, or a WYSIWYG Editor document center object, there is a field labeled 'Friendly URL label' displayed above the WYSIWYG Editor. This field is the short label that you wish to give to this particular page as the text for the friendly URL. This label should only contain numbers and/or letters, no special characters, and no spaces.
Upon saving the page, the refreshed page will display the new friendly URL underneath the 'Friendly URL label' field. This link can be copied and used elsewhere on the site, provided in emails, and/or included in printed materials and will direct the user to the page being edited which would normally have a much more complex URL.
Note: When a user goes to this friendly URL, the page on which they arrive will not display the friendly URL as the destination, but the actual URL of the page - this is normal.
Example:
I want to provide a friendly URL for my website's content page called 'Scholarship Opportunities' since the native URL for this page is extremely long. Here is the process for doing so:
- Go to Site > Site Builder.
- Click to edit 'Link Content' and then click the edit pencil for the 'Scholarship Opportunities' site page.
- Enter the text 'scholarships' in the 'Friendly URL label' field and click on 'Save'.
- Click to edit the 'Scholarship Opportunities' site page again - the link for 'http://studyabroad.mysite.edu/?go=scholarships' now appears under the 'Friendly URL label' field. Right-click and copy that URL.
I can now paste the shorter URL anywhere that I need to use the friendly URL, and the link will direct the user to the 'Scholarship Opportunities' page.
For pages on your site that do not have a WYSIWYG Editor, but require a friendly URL to be created, you can use the Site > Site Builder > Friendly URLs tool.
Example:
I want to create a shorter URL for my site's deadlines page. Here is the process I use:
- I logout - this steps is important if you are using an SSL certificate on your site.
- I go to my site's deadlines page and copy the URL for that site page into my clipboard.
- I log back in and go to Site > Site Builder > Friendly URLs.
- I click on the 'Add Friendly URL' link on the right side of the page.
- I type 'deadlines' into the 'Friendly URL Label' field of the form.
- I paste the URL of the deadlines page into the 'Destination URL' field of the form.
- Click 'Update.'
Now, my friendly URL for the deadlines page will be in the listing. I can copy that URL from the field and use it anywhere that I want to provide a shorter and more email/printed friendly URL for my site's deadlines page.