WiscWeb - Differences Between a Project and Production URL
In Progress/Project URL
When requesting a new WiscWeb site, you'll be prompted to use the format sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu (with the italics being the only editable section).
The text in italics is known as your Site Name. The entire URL (sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu) is considered your Project URL.
Your site will publish to a private project URL until you are ready for it to be public (aka "go live").
Project URL Considerations
While publishing to a project URL, your site, by default, will not be crawlable by search engines and will not appear in search results. However, if you link to that project URL from another site or webpage, it can become crawlable and may start appearing in search results.
- Used for editing somewhat privately (depending on what you share out) before launching your official site.
- Not intended as the final production URL for your site.
Production URL
When you are ready for your site to be public, you will will out a request for it to "launch."
WiscWeb - Steps to request a website launch (Reminder: Launches must be scheduled 2 weeks in advance of when you want to go live)
In the launch request form, you will be prompted to request a production domain/URL. This is where the site will live after it launches.
Once your site has officially launched, it will no longer publish to the project URL and instead will publish to your Production URL.
Production URL Considerations
- In most cases, the production URL will be whatever you requested in your launch form. However, in some cases, this domain is either not available, or does not meet domain naming requirements on campus. For more information, see WiscWeb - Domain naming Guidelines for WiscWeb.
- Because of the URL change, your old Project URL (sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu) will lead to a "Site Not Found" page. This page will have a link to your new Production Domain, in case someone had the old Project URL bookmarked. See WiscWeb - Site launch FAQ for more details.
- Making the site go live will allow any user to view the site and can allow search engines to crawl it. After crawling the site, your content will start to appear in search results for engines like Google and Bing. Please allow up to 1 month for this to occur as timing depends entirely on the search engine.
WiscWeb Life Cycle
