Web Address / URL Guide & Subdomain Protocol

Your sites's URL is its address on the web. Here's help making it descriptive and succinct.

Your site’s web address – called its URL – takes visitors to your homepage. Websites officially identified with Washington University in St. Louis have wustl.edu web addresses.

Depending on how your site is created, its URL will be either a wustl.edu subdirectory (sites.wustl.edu/yoursite) or subdomain (yoursite.wustl.edu).

Examples of Washington University web addresses include:

  • sites.wustl.edu/conferencename
  • sites.wustl.edu/myresearchlab
  • diversity.wustl.edu
  • humanities.wustl.edu

These URLs are all on subdomains of the parent domain wustl.edu, which lends each site the credibility of a .edu domain, as well as a clear relationship to Washington University. The wustl.edu domain automatically associates your site with a reputable institution, provides a consistent and predictable experience across Washington University websites, and helps rankings in search engines like Google

The general rule

Your site’s address should be short and recognizable, consisting of a known keyword, proper name, abbreviation or acronym.

  • Honor your group’s official name, but shorten or abbreviate it as much as possible without risking recognizability
    • Drop office of, program in, project, center, proper names, etc.
    • Use abbreviations or acronyms that are recognizable for your target audience (e.g., PNP for Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology)
    • Avoid acronyms that are not widely known
  • Make the address easy to read and understand in URL form; this typically means limiting phrases to two words (e.g., alumni.wustl.edu instead of alumnianddevelopment.wustl.edu)
  • Include the keywords your target audience might use to look for your site on Google and other search engines (learn about search engine optimization / SEO)
  • Avoid hyphens, underscores or other characters

Examples:

  • sites.wustl.edu/quantumsensors
    Center for Quantum Sensors
  • epsm.wustl.edu
    Experimental Studies of Planetary Materials
  • physics.wustl.edu
    Department of Physics

Registering additional URLs

In compliance with the university’s domain name policy, all sites related to Washington University, including Arts & Sciences or Arts & Sciences departments, programs, or centers, must use the wustl.edu domain name. After consultation with and approval from Arts & Sciences Communications, some groups may register additional web addresses in the university’s name on non-wustl.edu domains.

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