URL Approval Standard

Purpose

This standard defines the process Web Services uses to ensure a requested URL is approved for use with a website they host.

Brief Description

Any requested URL is subject to approval before it can be used for a website. This approval comes from the parent website owner. Web Services will handle requesting approval from the appropriate parties for sites that they host.

Details

URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator (also called Universal Resource Locator), which is a reference to a resource on a computer network that specifies the method used to retrieve it and where it is. For the purposes of this standard, think of this as the address of the website.

Parent Website

A parent website can be defined in three different ways, all of which apply to this standard:

  • The website that would contain the requested URL as a sub-directory. For example, https://www.purdue.edu is the parent website for https://www.purdue.edu/example.
  • The website that would contain the requested URL as a sub-domain. For example, https://it.purdue.edu is the parent website for https://example.it.purdue.edu.
  • The website itself, in the case of the top-level of a given domain like https://example.org.

This definition also applies recursively, so https://www.purdue.edu/parent is the parent website for https://www.purdue.edu/parent/example, and https://parent.purdue.edu is the parent website for https://example.parent.purdue.edu.

URL Approval Process

When a new website or redirect is requested, or when Web Services receives a request to move a site to a different URL, they will determine who can approve the use of the requested URL. Normally this will be the owners of the parent website, which are determined using records maintained by Web Services and searchable via the Service Reports tool. When the parent website owner cannot be determined via these records, Web Services will use their best judgment to determine who is authorized to approve the request. Web Services will then contact the authorized party and request approval unless they determine that the request is already approved. A requested URL is already approved when:

  • The request comes from an owner of the parent website, as defined above.
  • An owner of the parent website has already informed Web Services that this new URL is approved, as recorded in the service management software in use by Purdue IT at the time (currently Team Dynamix).

In the case of a new subdomain of an existing subdomain of purdue.edu, such as example.it.purdue.edu, both this standard and the Hostname Standard apply. In the special case of a new top-level subdomain of purdue.edu, such as example.purdue.edu, only the Hostname Standard applies, and the Domain Oversight Committee must approve the request.