Web content lifecycle

The content lifecycle and content life cycle describes the stages of life of the contents of a document. In connection with the publication on the Web is also called web content lifecycle.

The individual phases are explained below and shown in the graphic.

Create content

In this phase, the authors create the different objects (assets) from which the subsequent page should exist. This includes the text, but also graphics, videos or other media formats. These are referred to as "Content " means. When creating the content they use the specific search for existing information. It is, therefore, to question, what sources of information are used most frequently. The sources of information include their own archives and their own publications ( here: Publications of the company / institution ). Another source content creation is the use of offers for syndication.

Check and release

In this phase, the content previously created (eg for images ) checked for factual correctness and design (also known as quality assurance). This is done in a simple case by the creator of the content itself; However, typical here is the introduction of a hierarchy in which then must be the examination by one or more appropriately authorized staff ( editors ). With only one checked editor is called the 4-eyes - concept: Only when the content by 2 people ( here: an editor and author ) has been accepted, the page can be forwarded for publication. If the test is negative, the content is passed back to the author for editing.

Publish

After a document is released, it will be ported at this stage in the desired format and stored under a specified address. The essential step in this phase is that the contents are made ​​readable for the public. Depending on the nature of the art of the publication and management of the system used, this phase is complex: In a publication on the WWW it is not sufficient alone to generate a new website and store them somewhere on the web server; References must be set by the index of the site, at least, the parts of the website, which exist alongside the pure ( HTML ) text from images, and other objects must be stored and the permissions are set so that the target audience read the new website can.

If one uses as an author or editor to publish an HTML page is a web editor such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, overcome many of the above tasks are touched by site management functions. However, these functions are not sufficient by far to manage complex websites, which consist of several thousand to a million objects and require special control and release cycles. This task can be done only with the support of approval workflows and database- aided publishing a content management system, web content management system or enterprise content management system.

Archive

Since information obsolete, it must be ensured that they are archived automatically after a specified time, or passed to a work. Just as when you publish must be taken when archiving to ensure that the contents are for research purposes and later still accessible. This is, for example, essential for legally binding content. At the same time, and this is one of the major points for archiving, it must be ensured that existing references are not invalidated by the archiving of still current pages, or lead to an error.

For smaller companies or institutes pure archiving does not matter, so that the pages may not be backed, but will be deleted. This was done in the traditional Web publishing, which later proved to be a big mistake in many cases: Deleting knowledge was lost, even if it appeared at the time of deletion as obsolete and irrelevant. But it is precisely in the area of ​​scientific publications is a throwback to old publications of great significance and importance for compliance with the ( natural) scientific method. Be made via the website business transactions ( E-commerce ), the transaction data are to be archived because they are under commercial law ( gobs ) or tax (GDPdU ) relevant original data. Another aspect, which emphasizes the importance of archives, is also the " saving face " of a company in the event of an emergency. The loss of image due to a hacker break- in which the internet site is damaged, can be kept small by loading a backup backup.