Naming Convention

In order to make the site readable and the components recognizable, a standard basic naming convention is used.

Read about the URL Model in the Canada.ca Content and Information Architecture Specification: Organizing content on Canada.ca.

  • Each component should use a meaningful name in English and French.
  • The English and French names should be easily recognized when switching languages.
  • Name per official language.
  • Do not use EN or FR in the name.
  • A minimum of 8 characters and a maximum of 32 characters for each resource in the site.
  • Name of the title page.
  • Use lowercase.
  • Only use acronyms that are widely recognized but file name must comply to the minimum 8 characters to avoid confusion.
  • File names cannot have spaces. Substitute spaces with a hyphen.
  • Numbers are permitted.
  • No dates.
  • Avoid special characters.
  • No articles "le – la – une – the – a" etc., just words.
  • Do not use accents in naming French files.
  • Total number of characters in the path name cannot exceed 250 characters. For example: "//MLAP1766/hrsdc-rhdsc/main/IntRAnet/sp-es_prv/sp-es/WORKAREA/sp-es/docs/sp-es/eng/college/" contains 91 characters.
  • Try to keep it short.
URL model
Each web page has a primary URL, displayed in the browser's address bar. All other URLs referring to the web page resolve to the primary URL. This applies to URL aliases, vanity URLs, redirected URLs or any other non-primary URL.
Vanity URL Definition:

A vanity URL is a unique web address that is branded for marketing purposes.

Vanity URLs are a type of custom URL that exists to help users remember and find a specific page of your website. Therefore, your vanity URLs should be easy to remember, use, and share.

How to write URLs

This applies to all URLs, including vanity URLs and subdomains :

  • Use plain language keywords :
    • avoid superfluous words such as "to", "the", "a", "an", "by", "for" (for example, "/apply-student-loan" instead of "/how-to-apply-for-a-canadian-student-loan";
  • Separate keywords and path segments by hyphens;
  • Use lowercase;
  • It is strongly recommended that you use unilingual keywords, in the language of the page :
    • use only US-ASCII (7-bit version of ASCII) characters (for example, "meteo" instead of "météo");
    • avoid duplicate keywords and apostrophes.

Avoid acronyms and abbreviations, unless they are better understood than the full version or perform better on search engines

Writing URLs for communications products

When writing URLs for communication products, you can use either the primary URL or a vanity URL.

Vanity URLs must :

  • Be easy to type and to communicate;
  • Only include 1 path segment (only a single slash);
  • Hide the file extension for HTML-based pages (for example, "canada.ca/passport", "canada.ca/weather").

If the URL will be spoken out loud (for example, in radio and television advertisements), you can also have another vanity URL without hyphens. This will make it easier to read out loud.

Example – Television advertisement :

  • vanity URL for print: canada.ca/employment-insurance-maternity
  • vanity URL for television or radio: canada.ca/employmentinsurancematernity (spoken "canada dot c a slash employment insurance maternity")

Note: your account manager can submit new vanity URLs and change requests to the Principal Publisher using the Request form for Canada.ca.

Sub-domains

Only use subdomains for content or services hosted outside the Managed Web Service.

When choosing a subdomain :

  • Use plain language keywords that make sense to the user;
  • A maximum of 2 keywords is recommended;
  • It is strongly recommended that you use unilingual keywords, in the language of the page;
  • Related sub-sites and digital services must be grouped under the same sub-domain, where possible.

Examples :

  • Application for Employment Insurance benefits online arrow pointing right employment-insurance.canada.ca/benefits/apply
  • Employment Insurance Internet reporting service arrow pointing right employment-insurance.canada.ca/reporting

Note : your account manager can submit new Canada.ca sub-domains and change requests to the Principal Publisher using the Request form for Canada.ca. Sub-domain requests are reviewed by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

  • Name of the title page
  • Name per official language
  • No dates
  • No EN or FR in the name
  • All lowercase
  • No space, instead use a dash "-"
  • No articles "le – la – une – the – a" etc., just words
  • Try to keep it short