Bring Back A-Z!!!

We continue to receive feedback on the new website. The top request (51 of 127 form submissions) was bring ‘back the A-Z Index.’ This was expected but the level of hostility by some was not.

Past data proves the A-Z Index was highly used by internal audiences. However, mStoner, the higher education website professionals assisting us with the website redevelopment project, advised us that manual A-Z Indexes are outdated and we should use a more sophisticated search engine that doesn’t require manual updates.

Knowing changing learned behaviors is challenging, we developed a plan to phase out the A-Z Index with the end goal to use only search. We manually entered all 1,300 A-Z items as “best bets” to ensure they appear first in search results. We will continue to manually update “best bets” until we’re satisfied with search results.

Fixes and enhancements to the site’s search engine are underway. We’re setting up synonyms for common terms and phrases based on actual search keywords used by site visitors. We’re also tuning search to teach it expected results. It’s important to note many search issues are due to poor website content which has to be fixed on a page-by-page basis.

To better serve faculty and staff, we removed all copy and photos on the Info for Faculty & Staff page. We added more links for top used sites. Links were selected based on search traffic over the past two weeks paired with analytics data on the old site. We will adjust links featured as we collect more data. Links will be featured based on traffic not by request.

If there is a page you need frequently to do your job, please bookmark it. Please also continue to submit feedback via the form.