Drupal organizes contents into different content types, e.g., Pages, Articles, Events, etc. These entities share similar properties and basic guidelines:


Content Titles

Best practices when creating a title:

  • Keep it short. Avoid distracting the audience with additional content like promotional messages.

  • Do not use abbreviations. External Affairs should not be named "extaff". Instead use the full title.

  • Do not use acronyms. A full name will often perform better with search engines. If needed, you can add the acronym at the end in parenthesis.


Content types have different types of Titles available. If in doubt, it's perfectly fine to use the same across, but here are some recommendations to help you make the most of them:


General › Title

  • Simply use what best summarizes the content so that it's easy for you and other users to identify.
  • By default, other titles will be equal to this until customized.

 

General › Additional Settings & Metadata › SEO Title

  • Displayed in search engines and social media.
  • Please keep this value the same as above unless you're an administrator.

 

General › Additional Settings & Metadata › Short Title

  • Used when referencing contents across different sections, e.g., Events, Articles, and Departments.
  • Ensure the value of the content is not lost, and do not go against the best practices listed above.
  • For example, an event titled "COVID-19 and Kids: Impacts, Uncertainties and the Role of Vaccines" can be shortened to simply "COVID-19 and Kids".

 

Header › Page Header Title

  • Displayed in the Header section when the visitor arrives.
  • It allows for customization of the title, but it is not meant to change its meaning.
  • For example, a page titled "Team" can be changed to "Our Team" but you wouldn't change it to "Our Faculty", in that case we would simply title the page "Faculty".

 

Menu › Menu Link Title

This field is only available to Site Editors and Administrators. If you wish to customize the value of these fields, please contact us via our help desk.

  • Displayed in the local navigation of its parent page, and in the In This Section menu.
  • Much like, the Short Title, this field can be shorter than our title but it's important to not lose the meaning of the content, or go against the best practices listed above.



Content Paths (URLs)

Paths are formatted in lowercase and do not contain special characters or spaces; instead, these are replaced with hyphens (-).


The path of an entity will be generated automatically based on the menu location and its SEO Title. Modifying the SEO Title will automatically assign a new path to the entity and create a redirect for the previous path.


Example of a menu and SEO Title formation:

[top-level-menu-item]/[direct-parent-menu-item]/[current-item-seo-title]
/offices-and-services/office-of-admissions-services/request-for-information



Working with Groups:
Though this works largely the same way for groups, there are additional menus and navigation details unique to groups.



Updating Titles

Changing the title of a page or article should be done carefully as it affects multiple aspects:

  • The SEO Title will be updated automatically.
  • The URL will also be updated and automatically (matching the SEO Title) and will generate a redirect.
  • The Page Header Title will NOT be updated, so you will need to update this manually.
  • The Menu Link Title will NOT be updated, so you will need to request this be updated via the Revision Log.