Site Builder Cleanup Checklist

Site Builder Sites and Blogs will soon be migrated to the Integrated Web Platform (IWP). It is essential to clean up Sites and Blogs prior to Migration, so we don't end up with a bloated IWP loaded with outdated content, broken links, and unused files. It is also important to take this opportunity to improve accessibility and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The Cleanup Checklist has been and will be updated on a regular basis. Some tasks we originally recommended are no longer being recommended due to the fragile nature of Site Builder, and due to changes in migrations and functionality for IWP.

Updated 10/22/2024

Site Builder Owners

All Site Builder sites should have a current owner. Often owners resign or retire from ANR, and a site ends up without an owner. The admins of these sites can easily look at the list of admins, users and owners, and determine if there is or isn't a current owner. If the owner is no longer with ANR, any admin of the site can file an IT Help Desk Ticket and inform us of the new owner, and we will make the change. Be sure to include the site url in your email. Priority!

Outdated or Irrelevant Content

All outdated or irrelevant content should be removed or hidden on the Site Builder Site. If the old content needs to be archived, do so on your local machine or on a backup server such as Box. We see long past events from 14 years ago still on pages that have no content at all. We see attached files that are hopelessly out of date. - If there is no reasonable need to keep outdated content, then please delete it or deactivate the page. Cloud Storage Backup Options. Priority!

Page Meta Descriptions

Each Site Builder page should have a Unique Meta Description set in the Properties of that page. The Meta Description should concisely but precisely say exactly what the page is about. A Meta Description is often used in Search Engine Results to help connect people searching for content on your page. Meta Descriptions are also important for Accessibility. This is especially true for pages that don't utilize a main header and paragraph to indicate what the page is about. Do Not Use the same Meta Description for every page on your site. Priority! SEO   Accessibility

Check for Broken Links

Site Builder Sites often have broken links pointing internally or externally, on pages, and in PDFs and other documents. Broken links also include email links that are broken or outdated. For instance, IT has a number of personnel email addresses in Site Builder and Blog posts. These should be fixed, and changed to a departmental email such as help@ucanr.edu as broken links will be migrated. You can use this site to crawl your site builder site for broken links: https://validator.w3.org/checklink - This does not crawl pdfs for broken links, however. Site Admins can request that IT crawl their site for broken links using Site Improve. Alternatively, admins can go to siteimprove.com, register for a free account and get a basic crawl of their site. There is also a free version of Screaming Frog SEO that can scan smaller sites and report on broken links. There are also a variety of broken link plugins for most of the mainstream browsers including Chrome, FireFox, Safari, and Edge. There are some (broken) links that can be ignored. Links that are appended with a query that begins with a question mark such as ?sitePrivacyStatement or ?shareWith are in the header and footer of all ANR sites, but the Link Checkers are incorrect that the links are bad. Just ignore. Priority! SEO   Accessibility   Useability

Deactivated Pages (and assets)

Most Site Builder sites seem to have collected many deactivated pages and their related assets. In the Edit Site Pages view, with expanded children option selected, you will see pink highlighted rows of deactivated pages. These could be permanently deleted as Site Builder was never designed as a backup system. On many sites the deactivated pages greatly outnumber the activated pages, and severely tax the database. Deactivated pages and assets will not be migrated. Does Not Migrate!

Alt Attributes / Text for Images

Images should have Alt Attributes set for accessibility, and so that Search Engines can associate images with content. Site Builder renames images to a number, and because of this a file name is not descriptive, which makes Alt Attributes essential. Alt attributes are labled as Descriptions in Site Builder and can be changed on the page where the image lives, or in the File Library. PDFs and other attached files can have a description added which becomes a title attribute to give added context to the file. Hover over the image to show a title attribute. Look at the browser source code to see the alt attribute.

Example of what the html looks like:

<a href="//ucanr.edu/sites/sb3help/files/401637.pdf">
  <img src="//ucanr.edu/sites/sb3help/files/401639display.jpg"
    alt="Adobe Acrobat Icon for Lorem Ipsum sample pdf file"
    title="Adobe Acrobat Icon for Lorem Ipsum sample pdf file" />
</a>

SEO   Accessibility

Unused Images and Files

The File Library in Site Builder will show you a list of all images and files that were uploaded to your website. If you click on the Show File Use, the files and images in use on Site Builder pages will be identified with a green File In Use tag. If files and images were uploaded to your Site Builder Site and they are not active on any Site Builder Page they will NOT show the green File In Use tag. Does Not Migrate!;

Files and Images not in use on Site Builder Pages will not be migrated.

In other words Site Builder is for building websites, and it is not a Document Server or Backup System. Because some folks have treated Site Builder as a Document and Backup Server we recommend against deleting files and images without being sure they are not actually in use in Site Builder or elsewhere.

Removed Pages and Assets

Originally removed pages and assets were supposed to automatically be removed after 90 days. That script wasn't turned on for some reason until recently. At this point Site Builder is buggy enough to skip manually and permanently deleting Removed Pages and Assets. They will not migrate anyway. Do not be surprised if one day you find deleted pages and assets permanently removed. Does Not Migrate!

Navigation

Primary top and side navigation should contain links to pages associated with the site. Links pointing to other ANR sites and external sites will not be stripped from Navigation during migration, but it is strongly recommended to put external links in page content and do so contextually. External links that are in content will be migrated. Preliminary IWP designs combine top and side navigation from Site Builder pages. SEO   Accessibility   Useability

Inactive, Deleted, and Redirected Site Builder Sites and Blogs

All Inactive, Deleted and Redirected Sites and Blogs should be marked Hidden. A hidden site can have a redirect URL, but we do not want to support the overhead of keeping an unused site Visible. Site Builder is not a backup system. Does Not Migrate!

Blog Specific Cleanup

Blog Owners, Moderators (admins) and Contributors are not automatically updated when they leave ANR. Because of this it's important that the list of these people should be manutally kept up to date.

INS or Internal Notification System Views no longer works, and will not be migrated.. Does Not Migrate!

Check for Broken Links in content and in PDF files

Review Tags for accuracy and appropriateness.

Subscriptions - TODO -

Comments Does Not Migrate!

Blog Posts that were never published will not be migrated. Does Not Migrate

IWP Resources and News

Integrated Web Platform (IWP) Project

What is IWP?

The Integrated Web Platform (IWP) project will modernize the UC ANR web platform;organize the division’s educational information and make it more discoverable via proven, taxonomy-driven content strategy principles...

IWP 101: Understanding the Basics

Integrated Web Platform (IWP) Background

In the coming months, UC ANR will transition from the homegrown Site Builder to Drupal – a more stable, flexible, and powerful CMS that will make our content more discoverable to the communities we serve.

IWP FAQs

Why does Site Builder need to be replaced?

UC ANR’s web infrastructure needs to be redesigned in alignment with industry best practices - a modern cloud-based technology platform, a taxonomy-driven content strategy, and a unified branding strategy.

IWP Migration and Cleanup

Migration to Integrated Web Platform (IWP)

Migration means that content will be exported from Site Builder and become available in Drupal. The goal is to migrate existing, relevant content to Drupal while avoiding migration of irrelevant, outdated, duplicate, and unused content, images, and files.