This article outlines how to plan for a school or program closure, merger, or name change in Finalsite Composer, including what to prepare before the old site goes offline and who to contact for domain and redirect changes. Terminology used may differ, including sunset, archive, close, shut down, retire, or shut off.
⚠️ Important Note: Retiring or archiving a site vs Crisis Mode
- Retire, archive, or sunset a site: A planned, permanent change for a school closure, merger, or name change. The old site goes offline and its address redirects to a new site or page.
- Crisis Mode: A temporary emergency measure. All visitors see one emergency message until Crisis Mode is switched back to Inactive, and the site returns as it was.
For information on going into Crisis Mode, check out the article, "Activate Crisis Mode for emergencies."
💡 Quick answers
- What should be decided first? What should happen when someone visits the old site address. That choice determines the setup.
- Which tasks can be done in Composer? Reviewing content, forms, Resources, and users, and updating navigation and links.
- Who changes the domain or sets up redirects? The Client Success Manager and/or Finalsite Support. Contact your Client Success Manager or submit a request to Finalsite Support to start.
- What should the request include? The old address, the new address, and whether all pages should go to one page or each page should go to its match.
- What happens to the old content and domain? Pages stay in Composer, and Finalsite can advise before anything is removed. An unused domain stays in Composer until a new project needs it.
- When do search engines update their listings? Gradually, after the old site goes offline.
In this article
- Decide what happens at the old address
- Prepare the old site in Composer
- Request the change
- After the old site is offline
- Related articles
Decide what happens at the old address
Before anything is taken offline, decide what visitors should see when they go to the old address. Each choice below has a different setup, and Finalsite will handle the domain changes.
Option #1: Send all pages to one page
Use this option when the home page and every subpage of the old site should land on the homepage of the new school or the district site.
Option #2: Send each page to its match
Use this option when the new site has roughly the same structure as the old one and each old page should land on the matching page of the new site, such as the old About page going to the new About page.
Option #3: Rename a school
Use this option when a school keeps its site but changes its name and site address. The new address must be added to the DNS records before the change can be completed.
- Who does what: The school's IT team updates DNS, and Finalsite completes the change in Composer.
- Locations: Update the school's site name, logo, colors, and contact information in the Locations module. The updates flow into the header and footer. See Getting started with Locations.
- Logos and branding: Upload the new logo using the dimensions and file formats in Media guide part 1: Setting up your site's branding and global standards.
- Domain favicon: Select a new favicon for the domain in Domain Settings. See Configure Domain settings.
- More help: Configuring domain names and DNS records for your site.
Prepare the old site in Composer
These tasks can be completed in Composer before or alongside the request.
Step 1: Review content, forms, and Resources
- Content: Keep pages in Composer so the content can be retrieved later.
- Forms and Resources: Each is managed in its own module. Delete, rename, or leave in place, depending on whether the data is needed later.
Step 2: Review users and admins
- Admin users: Decide whether admins tied only to the closed school should be removed or reassigned.
- Constituents: Decide whether families and staff move to another school or district site.
Step 3: Update navigation and outside links
- District site: Remove the retired school from main navigation menus and portals.
- Outside links: Update the address in email signatures, social media profiles, printed materials, and other sites that link to the old address.
Request the change
Contact your Client Success Manager or submit a request to Finalsite Support for redirects, domain changes, and school renames. Complete the preparation tasks first, or mention in the request that they are in progress.
Include details in the request
- Old address: The full address of each site being retired.
- New address: The destination for each old address.
- Redirect type: All pages to one page, or each page to its match.
- Target date: When the change should take effect.
- Multiple sites: A simple list or spreadsheet of old and new addresses.
After the old site is offline
Test the old address
- Redirects: Visit the old address and a few subpage addresses to confirm each lands in the right place.
- Search engines: Listings for the old site update gradually. Search engines notice the redirect, list the new page, and eventually stop showing the old address.
- Problems: See Redirects not working: How to troubleshoot.
Repurpose an unused domain
- Keep: An unused domain stays in Composer until a new project needs it.
- Repurpose: To reuse the domain, update the content in Composer, then contact the Client Success Manager or Finalsite Support to launch the site live again.
- List order: On request, retired domains can be moved to the bottom of the list in Composer > Pages.