Navigation and URLs at pdx.edu

Use the information on this page to learn how to update your site’s navigation, page URLs, and manage redirects on your site.

On this page

PDX.edu support resources

Any content added to a PDX.edu site must be accessible to users with disabilities and follow appropriate legal guidelines. Additional information can be found in PSU’s Digital Accessibility, Digital Privacy, and Copyright policies.

Managing your site’s navigation

There are two main ways to manage your site’s navigation: using the PSU Primary Menu or by editing a page. Whichever method you choose, you will have the following choices to make:

Menu link title: the text used in the menu for this page
Description: additional context text that appears on hover
Parent Item: determines the menu structure; <PSU Primary Menu> puts this in your top-level navigation. Choosing anything else nests this item under the selected page.
Weight: helps to reorder the menu items. Ignore this; there is an easier way to reorder your menu.

Things to note:

There are three navigation layers:
- Top-level: displays in the white bar next to the search button
- Secondary: displays in the drop-down menu
- Third-level: displays in the drop-down menu under the secondary navigation
Your site’s top-level navigation can only be all direct links with no drop-down navigation, or all have a drop-down menu. This is an accessibility requirement. Follow the instructions for mixed navigation (both drop-down and direct links) if your site has mixed navigation.
While you can nest navigation items beyond the third level, they will all display the same as third-level navigation.
If you have secondary menu items with third-level items and secondary menu items without third-level items in a drop-down menu, the secondary items without third-level will always group together to the right of the menu.
Your top-level menu is limited by the amount of space you have. When adding pages to it, review the spacing to check if you need to rename menu link titles so it doesn't look "shoved together".

Add a page to navigation by editing the page

Not all pages have this option. When editing a page that does have this option, you'll notice a "Menu Settings" section in the right sidebar of the page.

To add the page to your site’s navigation, expand the “Menu Settings” and select “Provide a menu link”

Add a page to navigation using the PSU Primary Menu

While you can add any page to your navigation menu using this option, your site's menu should be for navigating within your site. Use CTA and Link paragraph blocks to create links to external resources and documents.

Use the admin menu to navigate to “Structure ￫ Menus ￫ PSU Primary Menu ￫ Add Link” to create the menu link.
Complete the form. This page has added options, beyond those described above. These include:
- Link: where the menu link goes. Begin typing the page title of a published page and select the correct page from the list of options.
- Enabled: leave this at the default
- Show as expanded: leave this at the default

Reordering your menu

It can be challenging to reorder menus using the weight. Here we’ll discuss an easier method. However, you can only do this with menu links that have already been created.

Use the admin menu to navigate to “Structure ￫ Menus ￫ PSU Primary Menu".
Hover over the crosshairs to the left of the menu item you want to move.
Select and drag the crosshairs to move the menu item up or down.
Save your changes.

Managing mixed navigation

If you have mixed navigation, where there are both direct links and drop-down menu links in your site’s top-level menu, you must create drop-down menus for the direct links.

Use the admin menu to navigate to “Structure ￫ Menus ￫ PSU Primary Menu ￫ Add Link” to create a menu link.
Complete the form. There are a few things you’ll want to complete differently, though:
- Menu link title: this text will display in the drop-down. You can use the same text as the currently existing direct link, or change it to something else that makes sense.
- Link: start typing in the title of the currently existing direct link.
- Parent item: select the currently existing direct link as the parent item.

Custom URLs

Using Redirects

Redirects are custom URLs on your site that “redirect” a person to a different URL. They’re useful for creating user-friendly URLs for pages with long clunky URLs (such as Google Docs or PDFs) or important pages and documents that frequently change URLs. This prevents you from having to find every place where the old URL was in use; instead, you just need to update the redirect.

To make a redirect:

Use the admin menu to navigate to “Configuration ￫ Search and Metadata ￫ URL Redirects”
Select "Add redirect"
Complete the form:
- Path: this is the custom redirect URL. You’ll note your site URL is already added, you just need to enter the text that follows your site’s URL.
  - Example: the Policy Library has a redirect for the Prohibited Discrimination & Harassment Policy (pdx.edu/policies/pdhp). They entered pdhp into the Path text box.
  - Note: you cannot use a path that is already in use, even if the page using the path is archived or in draft mode. You will need to use a different URL or update the URL on the other page to something else, otherwise the redirect will not work.
- To: this is the true destination URL.
- Redirect status: Leave this as the default.

Do note that redirects sometimes take a few minutes to come into effect; wait a little bit before testing the redirect.

Changing Page URLs

The URLs for each of your pages default to the page title. However, you can customize the URLs for landing pages and a few other page types. If a page you’re editing has that option, you’ll notice a "URL Alias" option on the right side of the page.

Provided the page you’re editing has that option, follow these instructions to customize the URL:

Expand the URL Alias menu
Deselect “Generate automatic URL alias” - this is the option that defaults the URL to the page title.
Enter the new end to your page’s URL; this is just the text that appears after your site’s URL starting with a forward slash.
- Example: you want your page titled About Us (defaulting to /about-us) to just end in “about”. You would enter /about for the URL alias.

Please note: your URL Alias cannot end with the same text as a site URL or top-level page. For example, pdx.edu/research (site) exists, as does pdx.edu/transfer-student (top-level URL). So you cannot create a custom URL that ends in /research or /transfer-student.

Making Anchor Links

An anchor link is used to "jump" a site visitor to a specific section of a page. These are useful in long or text-heavy pages where scrolling through the page to find the correct section would be tedious for the visitor. There are two main steps to making an anchor link: making the anchor and making the anchor link.

The anchor is the end destination, where you want to link to bring the visitor. The anchor link is what the visitor selects to navigate to the anchor - this may be on the same page or on a different page.

Step 1: Make the anchor

Log in to your site and navigate to the text block where you want to insert the anchor. Remember: the anchor is the end destination.
Place your cursor at the start of a paragraph or heading where you want the anchor to exist.
Select the “insert HTML” option - this is in the editing menu for all text blocks and looks like a document with HTML superimposed on the icon.
To create your anchor, enter the following text into the HTML snippet: <div id=“anchor-name”></div> - you will want to replace anchor-name with the actual name of the anchor. Things to remember:
1. No spaces should be in the anchor name as it is part of a URL.
2. Capitalization matters - if a letter is capitalized in the anchor, it will need to be capitalized in the anchor link.
3. Keep the quotation marks on either side of the anchor name in the HTML snippet.
Select the checkmark to the right of the entry area to save the HTML snippet - if you do not select the checkmark the snippet will not save and the anchor will not work.
Save the page.

Step 2: Make the anchor link

Log in to your site and navigate to where you want to make the anchor link. Remember: the anchor link is what the visitor selects to navigate to the anchor location.
Create a link as you would make any other link, with these modifications:
1. If the anchor is on the same page as the link, use #anchor-name as the link URL. Be sure the anchor name is identical to the one used in the anchor.
2. If the anchor is on a different page than the link, add #anchor-name to the end of the URL for the page where the anchor exists when making the link.
Save the page, then test the link to verify it works as intended.