Background

These guidelines are designed to resolve the current issues of inconsistency and instability inherent in many Queensland Government URLs. These issues have arisen due to a number of factors, including machinery of government changes, redevelopments of websites and a lack of forethought in planning. The inconsistency and instability in website addresses leads to frustration and a loss of trust on the part of clients. The lack of trust in the stability of website addresses has prevented the usage of deep linking, thereby hindering the efficient operation by some services, including contact centres.

In addition, these guidelines have been developed to assist agencies in meeting the requirements of Queensland Government information standards. The implementation advice for Information Standard 34 - Metadata states that Queensland Government agencies must be consistent with the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) Metadata Standard Version 1.3. There are a number of elements where the persistency and usability of a URL will impact on this implementation.

The Australian Government Implementation Manual for AGLS Metadata provides the following advice in relation to the DC.Identifier element:

In addition, the AGLS.Mandate element, used to describe any legislative or other mandate that requires the creation or provision of a resource, allows for the inclusion of a URL. Other elements where a URL can be entered include DC.Relation and DC.Source. The persistence of Queensland Government URLs is therefore fundamental to the implementation of Information Standard 34 - Metadata.