NOTE: Shortly prior to launch we made a massive shift in the menu system to accomodate custom Mega Menus not tied to the true structure of the site. As a result, numerous pages may have working URLs that are not technically correct in terms of how they match up to the intended structure. These cases can be easily fixed on a case-by-case basis when they are discovered. There was also a bug present for a short period of time preventing pages from picking up the correct path based on the menu system This bug has been fixed, but some nodes may need to be reset as described below to pick up the correct path (e.g. a page may have /my-page for a URL, when it should be /my-department/my-page).
This short HOWTO explains how URL paths are managed on the site. All URLs are auto-generated and managed using a combination of the Pathauto and Redirect modules. There is also a small custom module in place to manage "book" URL paths.
Content Pages
- If you DO NOT assign a page to a menu, the generated URL will be at the top level, e.g. /my-page
- If you DO assign a page to an existing menu, the URL will follow the menu structure, e.g. /fire-department/my-page
- By default, all nodes will maintain the URL that was assigned at the time of node creation even if you make changes
- For example, if you remove a page from the menu system it will maintain its original URL path (and vice versa)
- Similarly, if you change the title of a node it will still use the original URL path (which is based on the text in the title field)
- These cases are easily fixed by deleting the existing URL alias, and re-saving the node -- this will reset the URL path to default settings
Customizing your URLs
- Most pages should be fine following the defaults, but in the event you want a custom URL, you can simply change it to your desired path in the "URL Path Settings" tab, e.g /my-custom/path/to/my-page.
- Whenever you change a URL, an automatic redirect will be created to prevent old links from breaking.
- If you want to revert any page back to its default path, delete your custom URL and re-save the node. The default settings as explained above will take affect, and a re-direct will be automatically created so that your custom URL will continue to function.
Books
- Book pages are handled slightly differently, in that other than the "parent" book page they are not typically placed into a menu.
- In this case, there is a custom module in place that will generate URLs based on the book parent pages.
Other content types
- All of the other content types are also set up with custom URL patterns (e.g "news/[node:title] or faq/[node:title]).
- There should rarely be a need to customize these URLs, but all of the same rules and notes would apply to these content types in addition to Content Pages.
Additional notes
- Any redirects created as the result of changed URL are set up as permanent 301 redirects
- The redirects will be automatically deleted from the system if they have not been accessed in 30 days
- If a redirect URL is out in the wild via Search engines, email links, bookmarks, etc. it will remain in place indefinitely
- If you find an existing page with a whacky URL, it is likely due to the menu migration and should be reset as described above
