Google Sites is a free web hosting service offered to UGA faculty, staff, and student organizations.
Who can use Google Sites?
Any student, faculty or staff member with a valid UGA MyID may use Google Sites.
Security Considerations
All Google Sites must follow UGA's policies for information security. Site Owners and Editors are advised to know and understand UGA policies and regulations. Users, including students, with access to sites on this service should also complete USG Cybersecurity Awareness Training.
Sensitive and Restricted data should not be hosted on Google Sites, as it is public by nature. Storing Social Security Numbers or other personally identifiable information on Google Sites is strictly prohibited and will result in a disruption or termination of service.
EITS reserves the right to disable accounts that are compromised or not following UGA policies.
How to request a Google Site
You may request a Site by submitting a Google Workspace Help Request ticket. Your request must include the following information:
- The MyID of the Site owner/administrator, and your choice of storage option.
- A unique name for the Site that clearly identifies the person, team, unit, or organization.
- The template you wish to use for the Site.
- If you plan to use a Custom URL, the CNAME for the Site.
You have two storage options:
- Store your site in your Google Drive: You will be the sole owner of the site. Google Workspace administrators cannot assist you in adding or removing Editors and Viewers from the Site and cannot assign a new owner. If you leave the university, your site will be deleted within 60 days of your MyID being disabled, unless you transfer ownership of the Site to another user with an active MyID before leaving. For more permanence, you can also specify a Departmental MyID as the Site Owner, but the same caveat applies; if a Departmental MyID is deleted, so is the Site.
- Store your site in the Google Sites Shared Drive: Google Workspace administrators can add and remove Editors and Viewers from the Site, and the Site will remain available if you leave the University.
The available Site templates can viewed at the following links. You must be logged into Google Workspace to view the links.
You can also select a Blank template.
Editing and Publishing Your Site
Before you begin, please familiarize yourself with the UGA Brand Style Guide.
Once your Site has been created by an Administrator, you can access it at https://sites.google.com/new.
You can choose to give other users View or Edit access to your Site using the standard Google sharing dialog.
You have the option to Publish your Site only to UGA or to the Public. The published URL will look like this: https://sites.google.com/uga.edu/sitename.
Using a Custom URL
If your Site will be public, you can use a custom URL with it, such as sitename.uga.edu.
This is accomplished using the Canonical Name or CNAME record for your site, which is administered by the Office of Information Security. The CNAME record points a domain or subdomain to another domain name. For the purposes of this article, your CNAME, sitename.uga.edu, will point to ghs.googlehosted.com. This allows Google to match your CNAME to your Google Site.
To use a custom URL with your Google Site:
- Publish your Google Site to the public. We recommend using your intended CNAME as the site name so they match.
- Submit a CNAME DNS Request to the Office of Information Security; an example is shown.
The CNAME is the part of the URL to be shown to users in the browser's address bar. All Sites will be https, so don't include that here.
The Destination will always be ghs.googlehosted.com.
The Purpose specifies that this is a Google Site, and what it's for.
Example: You have a Google Site for a campus club called Go Dawgs. Your DNS request would look like this:
- CNAME: godawgs.uga.edu
- Destination: ghs.googlehosted.com
- Purpose: Google Site for the Go Dawgs club.
After the Office of Information Security confirms your CNAME request, update your Google Site request ticket to let the administrator know the current URL of your public Site and the CNAME of your Site. The current URL will be https://sites.google.com/uga.edu/sitename and the CNAME will be sitename.uga.edu.
Example: For your Go Dawg site, you would let the administrator know your current URL is https://sites.google.com/uga.edu/godawgs and your CNAME is godawgs.uga.edu.
Once the Google Workspace Administrator makes the Custom URL change, allow two hours for your Site to be available at your sitename.uga.edu URL.
More Sites Help
Google Sites Help