SEO and content marketing specialist who started working in the field in 2011. I love all things content, search engines, web accessibility, design, tech, and AI.
Website content quality, for a university, means every page a college publishes is current, links to pages that exist, and uses the campus’s official names and terms.
McMurry University raised its content quality score from 33 to 90 without adding staff by using a targeted, scalable accessibility approach.
Colleges hold to that bar when a written standard defines it, every page carries a named owner, and the central web team measures each college the same way.
Summary
- Outdated pages, broken links, and drifting program names each trace to a missing ownership or sourcing rule.
- Every program page should require an official name, degree type, named contact, and last-updated date as non-negotiable fields.
- Scoring every college quarterly on broken links per 100 pages, percentage of overdue pages, and off-brand term counts ties each metric directly to a policy clause.
Three common errors and where they start
Each of the three common errors traces to a different missing rule.
Outdated pages
Outdated pages are an ownership problem. Admissions deadlines and tuition tables expire every cycle, and the staff member who wrote them has often changed roles by then. The page stays live and shows a prospective student a deadline that has already passed.
The page doesn’t carry an owner’s name, so alerts go nowhere.
Links that decay after launch
Links decay after launch. Most work the day they go live, then break when another department renames a page or migrates its site, and the error sits on the college’s page until a visitor finds it.
Names that drift from the catalog
The registrar’s catalog already holds every official department and program name, but colleges rarely write from it. When a school is renamed or a degree changes title, each college keeps the name it learned first, and one program ends up under several names across the site.
Policies that name a penalty get followed
A campus content policy is enforceable when it states a measurable standard and sets a consequence for missing it. “Keep pages current” is a wish. “Review every page every 12 months, or it comes down” is a rule a college can meet, miss, and be held to.
Scope comes first. Nielsen Norman Group’s guide to content standards lists “Scope and Prioritize” as the first step, which on a campus means deciding which pages the policy covers.
The Title II web rule offers a ready dividing line. The Justice Department’s plain-language summary says a 1998 water quality report kept unchanged in an archive section would probably fall under the archive exception, provided it meets all four of the rule’s conditions.
Write that line into your policy this term. Old, unchanged material goes in a labeled archive, and every other page meets the standard. Accessibility becomes one clause that’s measured against WCAG 2.1 AA.
Name a person, not an office, and a deputy for when that named person leaves. Then put consequences on a timer: a page unpublishes itself, or an editor loses publishing rights until the backlog clears.
Adopt a one-page web content policy with five clauses:
- Each college names one site owner, recorded in the CMS.
- Every page outside the archive is reviewed every 12 months.
- Department and program names come only from the approved list.
- Every program page carries the required elements.
- Any page left unreviewed for more than 18 months unpublishes automatically.
Pull every name from the registrar’s catalog
Standardize names and page elements at the source. The registrar’s office already publishes the official catalog, so make its department and program names the only approved list and treat every variant as an error. Then fix the elements every program page must show, so a student comparing two degrees finds the same facts in the same places.
Content standards need to include rules for structuring content as well as editorial procedures and policies. A required-elements list settles what every program page contains:
- The official program name, taken from the approved list
- Degree type
- A named contact
- A last-updated date
Build both rules into the CMS. Turn the name field into a picklist fed by the catalog, so editors choose a name instead of typing one, and make each required element a field the page cannot publish without.
Start with ownership
Add two more required fields to every page: a named owner and a last-reviewed date.
Check before publishing, crawl every quarter
Pre-publish checks and quarterly crawls catch different errors, so a campus needs both. A check at publish stops mistakes an editor is about to make, such as an off-brand program name or a missing degree type. A quarterly crawl finds what decays after launch – usually links that broke later and pages that slipped past their review cycle.
| Check at publish | Quarterly crawl | |
| What it catches | Empty required fields, names missing from the approved list | Broken links, overdue pages |
| When it runs | Every time an editor saves | Once a quarter, across every URL |
| Tool | CMS field validation | Our platform or a crawler such as Screaming Frog |
| Who acts on it | The editor, before the page goes live | The page owner named in the CMS |
| What slips through | Uploaded PDFs and slide decks | Errors introduced between crawls |
Field rules only read the page itself, so an uploaded PDF goes through unchecked. Train editors before they post one. Section508.gov offers online courses and video modules on accessible documents, presentations, and PDFs; make them part of onboarding before an editor gets publishing rights.
Quarterly fits the policy’s clock. With a 12-month review cycle and an 18-month unpublish trigger, a quarterly crawl flags each overdue page about twice before it comes down.
Set up both layers before the next quarter begins. Add publish-time validation for required fields and off-brand names, then schedule the site-wide crawl to report broken links and overdue pages. New errors stop at publish, and decay surfaces within three months.
Score every college on the same three numbers
Report these three metrics for every college each quarter. Rank colleges side by side, and send the scorecard to deans and college web leads.
Each number maps to one clause of the policy, so a bad score points straight at the rule being missed.
| Metric | Policy clause it tracks | How to read it |
| Broken links per 100 pages | Site owner keeps the site working | Scaled to site size, so a small institute and a large medical school compare fairly |
| Pages past review date (%) | 12-month review cycle | Set your own red line; we suggest 5% |
| Off-brand terms (count) | Approved name list | Each instance is a single fix on a known page |
Add accessibility results under the college headings. Every red cell should name the person who owns the page.
Send the first scorecard this quarter. A high score means something only when the university knows the baseline it started from. Your first report gives every dean that starting number, and the second, still months before the April 2027 deadline, shows who moved.
Frequently asked questions
Why do links break on university websites after launch?
Links decay after launch because most work the day they go live, then break when another department renames a page or migrates its site. The error sits unnoticed on a college’s page until a visitor finds it.
What should a college content policy require?
An enforceable policy has five clauses: each college names one site owner recorded in the CMS, every non-archived page is reviewed every 12 months, department and program names come only from the registrar’s approved list, every program page carries required elements, and any page unreviewed after 18 months unpublishes automatically.
How often should a university crawl its site for errors?
Quarterly crawls fit the policy’s clock. With a 12-month review cycle and an 18-month unpublish trigger, a crawl run four times a year flags each overdue page at least twice before it comes down. Crawls catch broken links and overdue pages, and publish-time checks catch empty fields and off-brand names.
What is the WCAG 2.1 AA deadline for colleges?
Public institutions serving 50,000 or more people, covering most public universities, must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027. Smaller institutions have until April 26, 2028.
References
- ADA.gov. (2024, March 8). Fact sheet: New rule on the accessibility of web content and mobile apps provided by state and local governments. ADA.Gov. https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/
- DiMaggio, J. (2026, April 30). DOJ extends accessibility deadline to april 2027 | policy matters (april 2026). Upcea. https://upcea.edu/doj-extends-accessibility-deadline-to-april-2027-policy-matters-april-2026/
- Kaley, A. (2024, May 3). Content standards in design systems. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/content-design-systems/
