September 2021 Newsletter
Drupal Changes Coming Up
Versions and Relaunches and SEO Implications, Oh My
Drupal 7’s end-of-life was originally scheduled for November 2021. However, given the impact of COVID-19 on budgets and businesses, this date has been extended until November 28, 2022. Read what this means for sites on Drupal 7.
In that same announcement they mention that Drupal 8 will still be end-of-life on November 2, 2021. They believe upgrading from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 will be relatively easy.
If you will be relaunching your website, please contact us ahead of time by email at search@gsa.gov so we can discuss and coordinate, to ensure your search experience transitions smoothly.
Setting up Search.gov for Federalist Websites
As Easy as 1, 2, 3
For our customers already publishing their sites on Federalist, and for those thinking about migrating to it, please see these specific instructions required to integrate Search.gov with your Federalist website.
- Do some set up in GitHub
- Talk to us and do some set up in Search.gov’s Admin Center
- When you’re ready to launch, update your GitHub setup
On a side note, soon Federalist is becoming cloud.gov Pages. It will continue to offer the same services, just with a new name. Read more.
The <main> Element and Other Semantic Tags
Get Search Engines to Index the Right Content for Better Discoverability
Website structure can have a significant impact on the ability of search engines to provide a good search experience. We recommend you include a few basic SEO components on your website to help search engines target the valuable content and exclude distractions.
Particularly important is the <main> element. This element should surround the page title and the “actual” text of the page, and should not include any redundant text, like navigation, breadcrumbs, etc.
Release Notes
Want to learn about the latest features, fixes, and focuses of the Search team? We post monthly Release Notes on our website.