Top 5 most popular websites on dal.ca

Dalhousie’s website is big — really big.

Actually, calling it a website is a bit of a misnomer: it’s really a collection of hundreds of websites and thousands upon thousands of pages.

“There are about 140,000 pages in our dal.ca search index,” explains James Covey, director of the Dalhousie Web Team.

Over the past three years, the Web Team has been working with faculties, departments and offices to transition their pages to the latest design and navigation, using the Adobe CQ platform.

Nearly all of Dal’s faculties, for example, have launched redesigned websites within the past year, as have many departments. The Web Team has also worked with Communications and Marketing, the Registrar’s Office and individual departments to launch comprehensive microsites for all of Dal’s undergraduate programs, with grad programs soon to follow.

Out of all these sites, the most popular is, of course, the dal.ca homepage: as a gateway to the university’s content for a wide variety of users, it’s had more than 10.7 million visits in the past year alone. So we asked the Web Team to dig a bit deeper into its numbers and find us the next Top 5 most popular websites on the dal.ca domain over the past year.

1. Dalhousie Libraries (1.9 million visits)

The site that tops our list should surprise no one: from students scrounging for books for assignments to professors scanning journal databases, no Dal website gets as much regular traffic as the Libraries.

2. Faculty of Agriculture (775,000 visits)

You may not have suspected a faculty to be this high on the list, but consider that the Faculty of Agriculture is home to Dal’s largest community outside of Halifax, with many local services, supports and events specific to Truro. It’s a hub of information for Dal’s home in the hub of Nova Scotia.

3. Dal News (700,000 visits)

We’re flattered! With around 500 stories published each year — shared in our weekly email as well as on Today@Dal, MyDal and on social media — our website is consistently one of the most popular at the university.

4. Information Technology Services (396,000 visits)

Whether you’re looking to download programs made available to the Dal community, find information about the help desk or figure out how to set up your dal.ca account on your email software, the Information Technology Services website is the place to go.  

5. Athletics & Recreation (370,000 visits)

When you combine information about the varsity Dalhousie Tigers with Dalplex’s suite of recreation and fitness facilities and programs, it’s no wonder that the Athletics & Recreation website would be such a popular destination.  

Learn more about the Dalhousie Web Team at its website.