UW Brand

Web hosting

University Marketing and Communications provides eligible units with free, centralized WordPress web hosting. Our hosting service provides units with a branded WordPress site and a “www.washington.edu” address. This hosting service is provided free of charge and comes with support and training for content authors.

Eligible units

We provide hosting services to the following units on campus:

  • Top level units such as the President, Provost, and Regents.
  • Central administration units such as University Advancement.
  • Campaign, donor, stewardship, fundraising or similar websites.
  • Administrative units without a parent unit, or without the means to host their website.
  • Academic units without a parent unit, or without the means to host their website.
  • Strategic initiatives and programs.
  • Independent centers, academic or administrative, affiliated with the UW, without a parent unit, without means to host themselves, and/or without grant-based requirements for co-branding.

Important note

We cannot host other content management systems, static content, content that does not fit within the intended use of our content management system, domains, or subdomains.

Apply for hosting

To apply for hosting service, please complete the intake form below.  This form is sent to the Web Strategy Director for review and they will make an initial assessment, which will then be sent back to the requestor.

If approved, the next step will be an intake meeting.  The Director will set up a meeting with the representatives of the unit and the leads of the Web Development and Web Content teams.  During that meeting the team will understand the unit’s goals and objectives and work to create a plan moving forward.

Unfortunately, at this time, we are not accepting new requests for hosting.

If you have any questions about your existing hosting, please contact the UMAC Web Strategy Team at uweb@uw.edu.

Other hosting options

If your unit is not eligible for our hosting services, there are many other options to consider:

  • UW sites: UW Sites is a service that lets UW faculty, staff, and students easily create and operate a UW-branded site that is publicly readable. Features include UW branding, easy-to-use WordPress software, centrally administered (through UWIT), NetID integration, and shared NetID support.
  • Shared web hosting: The Web Publishing service provides a cluster of Web servers to make your information available to browsers, storage space for your Web pages, the ability to install Web applications like WordPress, Drupal and others, optional database services, site access control, and other utilities.
  • Standard hosted server: UW-IT’s Standard Managed Server Service deploys and manages Linux and Windows servers so that Departments can have access to a secure and stable environment to run their applications.
  • Standard managed server: UW-IT’s Standard Managed Server Service deploys and manages Linux and Windows servers so that Departments can have access to a secure and stable environment to run their applications.
  • Pantheon web hosting: Pantheon is a cloud web hosting provider offering powerful tools to build and maintain WordPress and Drupal based websites including enterprise grade security and 24/7 support.

Domain names

In general, we cannot host or maintain domains for units on campus. The only exception is when we are involved in a project and temporarily set up and maintain domain names to complete the project. In those cases, domain names need to be handed back to the unit upon completion of the project.

For sites we host

We are not able to manage domain names for departments or units wishing to either redirect a domain name or mask a domain name to a site we host. If such services are required, we strongly suggest the department or unit works with UWIT for domain redirection and masking services.

Legacy management

In the past we have managed domains for departments whose websites we host. If we currently manage a domain name for you, we will continue to do so.

For projects we lead

If we are actively working on a project with a department or unit, and setting up a separate domain is a part of that project, we will be happy to work with UWIT to get a domain name and contact group set up. If we set up a domain name, we will either create a new contact group or use an existing group belonging to that unit. We will remain administrative and technical contacts for the domain until the project is over and then transfer ownership rights of name and group to the department.