Site Architecture
The web site architecture is the heart of a web site affecting functional, creative and technical design. For creating a web site that can be scaled in the future we recommend the 'micro site' web architecture.
The entrance or introduction to the web site is for example:
http://www.yourweb.com
This page introduces the site and provides direct links to the major sub-sites (or micro sites) that make up the web site. For example, the intro screen might link to both a web home micro site and a product catalog micro site.
Then the site is built up of several micro sites e.g.
http://www.yourweb.com/web/
http://www.yourweb.com/catalog/
Additional micro sites can be added in the future. For example, an extranet might be added and a Spanish translated site version:
http://www.yourweb.com/extranet/
http://www.yourweb.com/es/
The benefits mean you have an architecture that can be scaled. Additionally each micro site just shows the information about that site so that the user is not bombared with too many options. For example a product catalog micro site is dedicated to product info and may be in addition to a corporate web site with investor information.
Additionally it is important that the URL or link to the pages is a nice clean description of where you are in the site architecture. This is what we call the clean URL concept.
Some site have links that look like:
http://www.badsite.com/default.aspx?ref=123
This does not give the user any useful information and makes the site look technical. The site architecture should produce friendly clean links suchs as:
http://www.cleansite.com/catalog/cosmetic/
These descriptive clean URLs are not only easy to read - the search engines like them as well.
What is a micro site architecture?
The entrance or introduction to the web site is for example:
http://www.yourweb.com
This page introduces the site and provides direct links to the major sub-sites (or micro sites) that make up the web site. For example, the intro screen might link to both a web home micro site and a product catalog micro site.
Then the site is built up of several micro sites e.g.
http://www.yourweb.com/web/
http://www.yourweb.com/catalog/
Additional micro sites can be added in the future. For example, an extranet might be added and a Spanish translated site version:
http://www.yourweb.com/extranet/
http://www.yourweb.com/es/
The benefits mean you have an architecture that can be scaled. Additionally each micro site just shows the information about that site so that the user is not bombared with too many options. For example a product catalog micro site is dedicated to product info and may be in addition to a corporate web site with investor information.
Additionally it is important that the URL or link to the pages is a nice clean description of where you are in the site architecture. This is what we call the clean URL concept.
Some site have links that look like:
http://www.badsite.com/default.aspx?ref=123
This does not give the user any useful information and makes the site look technical. The site architecture should produce friendly clean links suchs as:
http://www.cleansite.com/catalog/cosmetic/
These descriptive clean URLs are not only easy to read - the search engines like them as well.
