Clone Pages

Clone pages are web pages with identical content that appear multiple times throughout your website. To prevent you from having to update the same content in more then one place Govstack offers two options to connect these clone pages, allowing them to be updated from a single location. One option uses outbound links, and the other uses reusable components.

Cloned pages with outbound links

Outbound links create a hyperlink in your content tree. Rather than having multiple instances of the same page you can instead use these links to point back to a single content page.

Adding outbound menu links to the content tree will included them in the sub navigation at the side of web pages as well as in the menu manager and the sitemap component.

Outbound links will move site visitors to a central content page, acting as a redirect. This may not be desirable in some cases. If you wish to have individual pages for each clone, rather than a redirect, you will need to use the reusable component option instead.

Govstack will automatically update the destination of outbound menu links. If the target page or the outbound link itself are moved in the site structure the links will continue to function normally. Note that the actual URL referenced in the outbound link will not change. Changes in the site structure are kept track of behind the scenes by Govstack.

Add a cloned page with an outbound link

To begin this process you will need to decide which of your page instances should be the actual content page. Move your content to that webpage and delete all other instances of the page, noting where the original clones were so that you can create outbound links in their place.

Once this process is complete, to create a clone page with an outbound link, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the 'Content' section in Govstack’s back office. Your user account will need permission to create new nodes.
2. Right click the parent node that will contain your outbound link. Note that you cannot create outbound links under the 'Home' node. They will need to be nested at least one menu level down.
3. Select 'Create'
4. Select 'Outbound Link'
5. At the top of the new link, in the 'Enter a name' field, add the name of the outbound link. This should match the name of the destination clone page. For example, if your destination page is 'Animal Services' the name of the outbound link should also be 'Animal Services'
6. Enter the target URL for the cloned page in the 'External URL' field. To locate this link from the back office follow these steps:
   1. Open a new instance of the back office in a separate browser tab
   2. In the content tree navigate to the target page containing the cloned content
   3. Confirm that the page has been published. If not publish the page
   4. Open the info tab at the top right of the page
   5. Open the live version of the page using the URL under the 'Links' section
   6. Copy the browser address bar, including the https://
   7. Paste the resulting URL into the 'External URL' field of the outbound link dialogue
7. Set the 'Open in New Tab' slider as required. For most clone pages it should be off
8. Select 'Save and Publish' to complete the process

Repeat these step for each location in your website that should link to the clone page.

To update the content for clone pages using outbound links edit the content on remaining page instance.

Cloned pages with reusable components

Using this option for cloned pages will require page editors have access to the global node to edit page content.

Before you begin this process check to make sure that your cloned pages are not already set up with reusable components. In many websites this is part of the initial setup of your sitemap. If you open the 'Reusable Component' node found under 'Global' and you see items there that share the names of pages on your site this work may already be done for you.

Check the individual clone pages to see if they are using reusable components.  If this is the case the clone pages have already been set up.

If you need to build these pages yourself create and publish a reusable component containing the content for your cloned page. If the content already exist on a page in your website you can copy it directly to the reusable component by using the 'Copy main content' option found under the '...' menu on the left side of the 'Main content' section of the page.

To create a clone page using reusable components follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the 'Content' section in Govstack’s back office
2. Select the page you want to convert to a clone page
3. Delete any content on the clone page. You can use the 'Remove all items' option found under the '...' menu on the left side of the 'Main content' section of the page
4. Select 'Add content'
5. Choose 'Reusable Component' from the component list
6. Select 'Add' in the reusable components dialogue
7. Select the target content from the list of reusable components and click 'Submit'
8. Select the 'Create' button
9. Select 'Save and Publish' to complete the process

Repeat these step for each clone page on the site.

To update content on clone pages created using these steps update, save, and publish the reusable component found in the global node.