Website Content Update & Retention Policy

The purpose of this document is to provide recommendations to keep the university websites (USFCA and myUSF) content refreshed and provide accurate information to all audiences. 

Old, outdated web content hurts search results, website performance, GenAI and LLM (large language model) accuracy, and creates confusion for our audiences. The website is not an archive or storage system for documents and PDFs — other university tools better serve this purpose, such as separate web servers or a shared Google Drive. 

Retention Guidelines

• Recommend storing information no longer than 3 years. If longer, we recommend archiving on a server/google drive or an alternative repository.
• Exceptions will be granted for any information we are legally required to post, e.g. accreditation reports and statistics. Work with OMC Web Services to identify these; the content will be marked as approved and archived.
• Many of myUSF websites contain information older than the USF document retention policy requires.

Web Content Update Guidelines

Many web pages are created, and web editors leave, resulting in outdated and forgotten pages and PDFs. Establishing a regular content refresh cycle will help ensure information in your department remains accurate. Please ensure your website complies with the following:

• Review your web content at least annually and make appropriate updates. If the content is still accurate, add a comment that this page is still accurate. That will ensure the pages have been at least reviewed and we will leave them untouched. 
• OMC will run a report every summer based on the last date the web content was updated. 
  • If web content has not been updated or in 3 years, OMC will contact the department. 
  • If there is no response within a month's time, we reserve the right to archive the information. 
  • We will not purge any content for at least 6 months post-archiving.