As Web sites have grown in size, complexity, and prominence over the past five years, Web site management has become a growing concern for Webmasters, system administrators, and organizations as a whole. Unfortunately, the technology used to build most Web sites (HTML) is designed to produce individual Web pages easily, but does not provide a structure to easily maintain entire Web sites or manage the workflow involved in Web site production and maintenance.

Like many organizations, the Center for Technology in Government faced critical issues as its Web site matured over a five-year span from a simple location for posting reports and project results to a highly complex site with over 1,300 Web pages, thousands of hyperlinks, multiple navigation and search routes, interactive applications, and ongoing updates. The Web site also began to assume a more prominent status as a primary communication and outreach tool for the organization, so its performance, appearance, and timeliness became of greater concern. The question we confronted was not unusual:

How could we continue to manage a Web site that was continually getting larger and more complex without just throwing more money and resources into it?

There had to be a better way.