Web Addresses & Domain Names

Domain names are an important part of the university's identity and should follow a consistent structure in order to promote the university brand and help users easily navigate the USNH web universe. 

Guidelines

Institutional primary domain names

The primary domain names for the University System of New Hampshire institutions are:

• Keene.edu
• Plymouth.edu
• Unh.edu

Subdomains

Colleges and schools at USNH are permitted to use the subdomain configuration college.institution.edu as in paulcollege.unh.edu. This allows college sites and sub-sites to have a simple URL. For example: paulcollege.unh.edu/graduate or ceps.unh.edu/chemistry.  

Software and tools hosted by external vendors that have a contract with USNH ET&S Software Development, or approval from a dean, are also allowed the subdomain configuration toolname.institution.edu. For example: give.plymouth.edu.

Subsites

Other units with websites hosted at USNH should use a subdirectory structure consisting of the institution’s domain name followed by a slash and the name of the department or organization. For example: institution.edu/name-of-department-or-organization.

Web applications

Whenever possible, it is recommended an application be hosted under the main website in a sub-folder. An example structure would be: ceps.unh.edu/application-name. Please reach out to ET&S for assistance with hosting web applications.

Naming conventions

Subdomain and Subsite names should be concise and have meaning to the user. They also should:

• Correlate with an organization's name.
• Work for email addresses and social handles.
• Employ dashes between words instead of spaces or underscores.
• Be lowercase. Intermittent use of uppercase letters can be confusing for users and disrupt SEO.

They should not:

• Conflict with other groups on campus.
• Include the articles "a" or "the," or special characters.
• Include acronyms unless they are universally recognized.

To request a domain/subdomain please contact ET&S. For more information about individual page URLs, please see the Links and Navigation guidelines.

Web applications

Whenever possible, it is recommended an application be hosted under the main website in a sub-folder. An example structure would be: ceps.unh.edu/application-name.

Some web applications for business processes or research require dedicated web services. ET&S provides a dedicated service for hosting custom web applications at webapps.unh.edu. URLs for these applications use the structure webapps.unh.edu/application-name.

Departments that host their own sites or applications also may implement a dedicated service for web applications such as:

• csapps.unh.edu/application1
• csapps.unh.edu/application2

If there is a technical reason a subdomain will not work in a sub-directory, please fill out a request form to have your subdomain reviewed by ET&S.

Using other domain names (.org/.com)

Sites should be set up using the website options available at USNH whenever possible. In special cases a .org address may be allowed for partnership sites where website ownership is shared between USNH and other schools or entities. Any .org name must not conflict with a unh.edu, keene.edu or plymouth.edu address.

Domain name management

ET&S manages domain names that point to USNH websites or USNH servers. Any address containing "UNH", "Keene" or "Plymouth” should be owned by either ET&S or another approved USNH entity. Please contact ET&S to request purchasing these domains. Unh.edu, plymouth.edu and keene.edu domain names may not be redirected to externally-hosted sites.

More about redirects and external redirects

Archiving

Domain and subdomain names are removed once a web page has been removed. To redirect a URL to another page, see the Redirects standard.

Support

For support, questions, or to request a URL or domain name, please contact ET&S.