Steps involved in launching your UCSC website, including setting expectations, timelines, and what work happens leaning up to your website launch.
Your website launch should be coordinated with your Website Liaison. You will be asked to provide a preferred launch date. Best efforts will be made to match the date you request, but it is not guaranteed.
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Start here
Make a request to launch your website about 3-4 weeks before you’d like your site to go live. The request should come from the website owner, or manager.
Things you’ll need to complete your request
- Your contact information
- Name of your website
- URL of your website
- Your preferred site launch date that is coordinated with your Website Liaison. (Specific launch dates are not guaranteed)
After you make a request
- You’ll get an email soon after confirming your request.
- You’ll be provided a pre-launch review on your website with an eye towards usability, accessibility, and alignment with UCSC identity. The review may include recommendations for improvements before a launch can be scheduled.
- The Web Team will take care of the technical needs to make a website go-live.
- A meeting to set expectations for launch and check in on your readiness. In this meeting we’ll cover a go-live date, and answer any questions you might have.
When will my site go live?
The exact date of your website launch will be determined by several factors including:
- A pre-launch review to ensure Website Standards are met.
- Your determination that your website content is ready to present to the public.
- Agreement with your Website Liaison on a go-live date.
When should I communicate my launch date?
You should wait until you get confirmation of a date from ITS Web Services.
When it’s time to launch your website
The Web Team will send the website owner an email. It may take a short amount of time for some technical issues to be resolved, and during this time your website may be unavailable. We start this process at the end of the business day when our web traffic is lighter.
How to streamline your website launch
- Quality assurance check your website as you go. Reach out to your Website Liaison for tips on how to do this.
- Use a Broken Link Checker to catch any broken links, and fix them.
- Plan for redirects early on. Redirects are short term solutions, poor for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and in the long run may hurt the findability and usability of your web content. Talk to your Website Liaison about best practices.