Site URLs

Brightspot contains a number of ways to create and maintain URLs, including permalinks, redirects, and wildcard URLs. This section explains how to work with URLs in Brightspot CMS.

A URL is an address that you type in your browser’s address bar, and every item that you publish in Brightspot has its own unique URL. The base portion of a URL typically starts with http:// or https:// followed by a domain name. The following table describes the different types of base URLs you can assign to each of your sites.

For example, Sally is a voracious reader and an even more voracious writer. She was hired by Extraterrestrial Cuisine, a media giant that has three publications—Moon Munchies, Venus Victuals, and Martian Menus—and Sally is publishing content to all three. The following table shows how Extraterrestrial Cuisine has set up its domain names:

When Sally comes to work every morning, she logs in to Brightspot using the address http://editors.extraterrestrial.com/cms. Whenever she works on an article, she sees URLs similar to the following in her browser—regardless to which site she is publishing content.

Visitors who want to read one of her articles see a URL similar to the following in their browsers.

The following table describes when you need to configure base URLs for your sites as well as associated default values.

1. Click menu > Admin > Sites & Settings.
2. In the Sites & Settings widget, click the site for which you want to configure base URLs. The Edit Global or Edit Site widget appears.

3. Click Main, and enter base URLs in the Default Tool URL field.

   

4. Click Save.

To add redirect URLs using wildcards:

1. Click menu > Admin > Wildcard Redirects. The Search Wildcard Redirect widget appears.

2. Click New Wildcard Redirect on the bottom left. The New Wildcard Redirect edit content page appears.

   

3. Set the URL options using the information below:
   
   • Name: Name describing the purpose of the redirect.
   • Local URLs: URL for retired content
   • Destination: URL with the content to display
   • Temporary: If set, the server sends an HTTP 302 temporary redirect to the browser; otherwise, it sends a 301 permanent redirect. A temporary redirect instructs search engines to temporarily replace the older URL in their listings with the new one. However, the search engines continue to scan the site at the old URL and will deliver that page after you delete the temporary redirect.
4. Set the Query String option if applicable. The options are: Ignore, Modify, or Preserve. For Modify, there are additional options for specifying the keys to keep.
5. To transfer any matched path segments, turn on Transfer Matched Segments. The local URLs must contain wildcards for this setting to take effect.
6. In multi-site environments, select an Owner and Access in the Sites widget.
7. In the editorial toolbar, save or publish the new redirect.

Brightspot retrieves assets using a permalink. For example, a visitor wants to view the URL http://example.com/menus, so Brightspot retrieves the asset whose permalink is menus.

URLs with a trailing slash can be ambiguous. If a visitor wants to view http://example.com/menus/, Brightspot can do one of the following:

Remove the trailing slash, and retrieve the asset at the permalink menus.

Retain the trailing slash, and retrieve the asset at the permalink menus.

Additionally, if a visitor wants to view http://example.com/menus, Brightspot can add a trailing slash and retrieve the asset at the permalink menus.

The following table describes how Brightspot can modify URLs by appending or removing trailing slashes.

URLs identify the location of resources on a website by specifying both the domain name and the specific path to an asset. You set the domain at the site level when you create the site. At the site level, you can also specify both
vanity URLs and wildcard URLs. At the asset level, you can manage the path.

Asset-level URL management

You set the path part of the URL in the URLs widget, which appears in the content edit pages of an asset. You can set the following types of URLs in the URLs widget.

Permalinks for assets

When you create an asset, you must assign it a permalink to make the asset accessible on a website. A permalink must be unique on the site where the item resides. A permalink should not be changed or deleted, even if the link is erroneously named or if the item becomes obsolete. In such cases, you can apply an alias or redirect URL to handle the issue.

As a best practice, your organization should define a permalink scheme to better manage the ever-increasing volume of content on your websites. The scheme should define the structure of the path in a way that is meaningful to your organization. For example, you could use paths based on headlines for article types, such as /deadly-gamma-ray-burst-headed-for-tinas-pizzeria. To provide more information about resources on your website, you could use additional URL segments.

Redirect URLs for assets

Redirects protect against web links that reference obsoleted (moved, deleted, or consolidated) content on your site. Redirect URLs map source links to target links, where source links are URLs to obsoleted assets, and target links are URLs to new, replacement assets. Redirects can be either permanent (301 redirects) or temporary (307 redirects).

You can add redirect URLs at the asset level; in the content edit page of a target asset, map source permalinks for one or more obsolete assets to the target permalink.

Administrators are also able to redirect URLs at the site level using either vanity URLs or wildcard URLs.

A prerequisite for setting a redirect URL is that the URL itself no longer exist on the obsolete asset. This is accomplished in one of the following ways:

• Deleting the obsolete asset.
• Deleting the asset’s permalink.

Brightspot automatically generates URL permalinks for assets you create. Below is an explainer about how this behavior works.

By default, assets created in Brightspot get an auto-created permalink URL based on these rules:

• For assets that have a URL Slug field (like Article or Listicle, for example), this will be read first in order to create the URL.
• For assets without a URL Slug field (like Page or Tag), the URL will be automatically generated from the asset’s primary field (like Display Name).

Sections affect URLs a little differently.

• If no section is added to an asset, the end of the URL is /asset-title.
• If you assign a section to an asset, the URL is /section-name/asset-title.
• You can create a section hierarchy, in which one section is the parent of another. The below example illustrates how this affects URLs.
  
  • Create section 1.
    
    • URL: /section-1
  • Create section 2, and assign section 1 as its parent.
    
    • URL: /section-1/section-2
• Create section 3, and assign section 2 as its parent.
  
  • URL: /section-1/section-2/section-3

If you add the section at any point in the asset’s workflow before publishing, it will change the auto-generated URL; however, once you publish the asset, this will not happen, and it will retain the URL path that was already generated for it.

You can add redirect URLs in the content edit page of the target asset, that is, the asset that you want to use in place of an obsolete asset. For example, if Article A is obsolete and you want links to Article A to be redirected to Article B, then you set the redirect in the content edit page for Article B.

To add redirect URLs to a target permalink:

1. Obtain the URL of the obsolete asset.
2. In the URLs widget, click add_circle_outline.
3. From the drop-down list, select Redirect (Permanent) or Redirect (Temporary).
4. In a multi-site environment, from the drop-down list, select the site to which you want the redirect URL to apply. Selecting Global applies the redirect URL to all of your sites.
5. In the text box, type the redirect URL in the field. The redirect URL specifies one of the following:
   
   • The permalink of an asset you deleted.
   • A permalink you deleted from an asset.

   URLs start with a slash (/) and have no ending slash.
   For example, if an obsoleted article had a permalink of /toppings, you would specify /toppings as the redirect URL. As shown in the following screen shot, the /toppings link would be redirected to the asset with the permalink of /ice-cream-toppings.

   

6. Repeat steps 2–5 to set additional redirects to this asset.
7. In the Editorial toolbar, save or publish the asset.

If you get a message about fixing field errors, you probably specified a permalink that has not been removed from the obsolete asset.

In a multi-site environment, the URLs widget includes a list option to select a site. Brightspot publishes the asset to the site set in this option using the URL you provide.

As shown in the following example, you can publish an asset to multiple sites with the URLs widget. If you set Global, Brightspot publishes to all sites.

When publishing to multiple sites, you can use the same permalink across multiple sites because each site has a different domain name.

In the left example, a single permalink is set, /extraterrestrials, for both Asteroid Hunters and Stargazers.

The resulting fully qualified URLs are unique because of the sites’ different domain names.

^{Fully qualified URLs with the same permalinks.}

Alternatively, you can set site-specific permalinks on an asset. In the following example, there are different permalinks for the Asteroid Hunters site and the Stargazers site.

^{Fully qualified URLs with different permalinks.}

To configure trailing slash behavior:

1. Click menu > Admin > Sites & Settings.
2. In the Sites widget, select Global. The Edit Global widget appears.
3. Under CMS, expand Advanced.
4. From the Trailing Slash Configuration list, select one of the following.
   
   • Do Not Change—Incoming URLs not changed.
   • Remove—Removes trailing slashes from incoming URLs unless an asset already exists at the modified URL.
   • Normalize—Changes the incoming URL to an existing one (if possible).
5. Click Save.

1. Search for and open the item on the content edit page.
2. In the URLs widget, set Generate Permalink. (If you do not see the Generate Permalink checkbox, you need to manually create a permalink).
   

   

3. Review the permalink automatically generated from the headline field. You can change the permalink by changing the text in the slug field (if available).
4. Complete your site’s workflow and publish the item.

To add custom URLs to content:

1. Search for and open the item on the content edit page.
2. In the URLs widget, click add_circle_outline.

3. Type the URL in the field. URLs start with a slash (/) and have no ending slash, such as /ice-cream-toppings. To set a wildcard URL, see Wildcard URLs and wildcard URL redirects. For details about redirect URLs, see Redirect URLs for assets.

   Set the remaining fields for a single-site or a multiple-site environment.
   

4. For a single-site environment, select the type of URL.

   For a multi-site environment:
   

   1. From the left list, select the site to which the URL applies. Selecting Global applies the URL to all your sites.
   2. From the right list, select the type of URL.
5. Repeat steps 2–4 to add additional URLs.
6. Complete your site’s workflow and publish the item.

To delete a URL:

1. Search for and open the item on the content edit page.
2. In the URLs widget, click  corresponding to the URL that you want to delete.
3. Complete your site’s workflow and publish the item.

To add redirect vanity URLs:

1. Click menu > Admin > Vanity URL Redirects. The Search Vanity URL Redirect widget appears.

   

2. Click New Vanity URL Redirect on the bottom left. The New Vanity URL Redirect edit content page appears.
3. Set the URL options using the information in the table below.
   

   Field	Description
   Name	Name describing the purpose of the redirect
   Local Urls	Vanity URL
   Destination	URL with the content to display
   Temporary	If set, the server sends an HTTP 302 temporary redirect to the browser; otherwise, it sends a 301 permanent redirect. A temporary redirect instructs search engines to temporarily replace the older URL in their listings with the new one. However, the search engines continue to scan the site at the old URL and will deliver that page after you delete the temporary redirect.

4. Set the Query String option if applicable. The options are: Ignore, Modify, or Preserve. For Modify, there are additional options for specifying the keys to keep.
5. In multi-site environments, select an Owner and Access in the Sites widget.
6. In the Editorial toolbar, save or publish the new redirect.

To add a redirect URL:

1. Obtain the URL of the obsolete asset.
2. In the URLs widget, click add_circle_outline.
3. From the drop-down list, select Redirect (Permanent) or Redirect (Temporary).
4. In a multi-site environment, from the drop-down list, select the site to which you want the redirect URL to apply. Selecting Global applies the redirect URL to all of your sites.
5. In the text box, type the redirect URL in the field. The redirect URL specifies one of the following:
   
   1. The permalink of an asset you deleted.
   2. A permalink you deleted from an asset.
6. Repeat steps 2–5 to set additional redirects to this asset.
7. In the Editorial toolbar, save or publish the asset.

If you get a message about fixing field errors, you probably specified a permalink that has not been removed from the obsolete asset.