Keep your site current
Decide who owns the website and who can make updates. Record the repository address, published address, and publishing process somewhere the research team can find them.
Review content regularly
- Update project status, people, contact information, and funding acknowledgements.
- Add outputs with useful summaries and working links.
- Check external destinations and replace broken links.
- Review image permissions, descriptions, and accessible formatting when adding media.
- Remove draft instructions and placeholder content before sharing a page.
Keep stable page addresses when possible. If you change a permalink, update the menu and other pages that link to it; consider a redirect through your team’s technical support when an old address has already been shared.
Make changes easy to review
Use short commit descriptions that explain the result, such as “Update fieldwork dates”. For larger changes, use your team’s review process and keep content changes understandable to the next editor. Check the finished site after publication.
Theme updates
If your site uses remote_theme, its theme comes from another repository. A site can pin that setting to a tag or commit to control when it adopts updates. Ask a technical collaborator to help choose a version when needed. If your site instead copies theme files, those files need a separate update process.
After a theme update, check your key pages, menus, cards, images, tables, and colour contrast. Keep your own content and settings in your project repository so the team can maintain them over time.