Why don’t I get a web address like www.lclark.edu/something?

• 4 December 2007
• David McKelvey

Addresses that come off the root, as in lclark.edu/something means that the page, or site, or redirect exists at the very base of the web server’s file architecture (a root address). Now, at first, we could assign a bunch of things to the root and have no issues with that, but at time wears on, we’d begin to run out of assignable names (as they were already assigned in the past).

Further, we’d start to see conflict between similarly-named segments of the institution, say CAS admissions and graduate or law admissions, which could result in confusion for the average site visitor, who cannot be expected to know that there might be three different admissions offices. After all, they’re likely only searching for one.

What complicates this is that while the web seems to be ever-dynamic, web addresses cannot always be so, as we rarely know how many people may have bookmarked/favorited a particular page or how much later they may want to use that bookmark/favorite. So, when we assign a location, we want to make sure it’s going to be nearly permanent. (We do move sites later and redirect people to the new location, but that still means the original location is “occupied” by the redirect.)

So, expect that New Media will be very careful in helping you figure out a location for that next site, or that promotional url, and that despite the desire to have the address as short as possible, you will likely not get a root address. In those cases where we do refuse to give you a root address, we do hope you appreciate that we are protecting Lewis & Clark’s future opportunities; and, if the issue is promotional, we are certain to help you out with a /go/ address.

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• Web Policies