Introduction to Go.Warwick
Web addresses (URLs) can be long. For example, the web address for SiteBuilder is:
https://warwick.ac.uk/services/its/servicessupport/web/sitebuilder2
This is because the University's website is highly structured to keep it organised and make it easier to administer. All academic faculties are located under warwick.ac.uk/fac/. They are further organised into subcategories:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/ https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/
…and so on down to the individual departments.
Administrative departments are located under:
https://warwick.ac.uk/services/
Although there are obvious benefits to this system, it also has drawbacks. Long web addresses are difficult to remember, tell people or fit on stationery.
Staff can use the Go.Warwick service to request and manage short, memorable web addresses. Once created, you can cite a short address as:
warwick.ac.uk/somewhere
Note that https://warwick.ac.uk/go/somewhere/ and https://go.warwick.ac.uk/somewhere/ also work.
As well as being easier to remember, Go redirects on printed material help to prevent the material from becoming obsolete if you restructure your website. If a URL changes, you can update the Go redirect to point to the new location.
If you have previously cited Go redirects in the following form, they will continue to work:
www.warwick.ac.uk/go/somewhere
go.warwick.ac.uk/somewhere
However, the best form to use is:
warwick.ac.uk/somewhere
https:// in front of it.