Google Sites as an intranet

paulslater3 · 01-19-2022 07:19 AM

I"m building an intranet site for my company using Google Sites. While Google Sites seems perfect for an intranet, since our company uses Google Workspace for all our tools, I am finding myself stuck in some areas.

1. There's no news feed. I plan on using Google Currents and embedding that into the Google Site, but the design isn't great. Any suggestions on news feeds for Google Sites?

2. Permissions seem to be an issue for my content editors, I can't set permissions for content editors for specific pages. It's either the entire Google Site or nothing. I guess the only way to do this is by creating mulitple Google Sites to give it the illusion of a single intranet site, this way I can have content editors based on specific sites (e.g. HR Site or Corp Comm site or Diversity site, etc..). Any suggestions when it comes to content editor permissions?

3. Publishing - seems when you publish a page you publish the entire site. Would be nice to be able just to publish a single page, especially if I have pages or edits that are not ready to be published. Am I missing something here or is this the only option with publishing in Google Sites?

I have more questions but that's a good start. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

b_gorsky1

@StephenHind - Steegle.com can help you with some of this, albeit at extra cost.

login

@paulslater3 @EmsIdeas Also, Google Sites has a big index problem.

In order to solve the Google Sites index problem, first of all, it is necessary to investigate what the problem is caused by.

First of all, if your website has just opened, you should be patient. As soon as your site opens, your pages may not be indexed immediately. However, while you are waiting for your site to be indexed, of course, there are some things you can do:

Sign in to your Search console account. Then you can look at the scope problems and find out which urls are not indexed and what the problems are. In the warnings section, you will find clues about why the pages cannot be indexed.

In addition, you can test the live urls of your pages by checking the URLs one by one.

You did a live url test, you got a "URL is not indexable" warning. The reason for this will be given to you on the same panel. So what could these be?

paulslater3

Appreciate this info. Since the Google Site I published isn't publicly facing I don't need to worry about Google Search, but appreciate the help on it.

StephenHind

Thanks for the shoutout @b_gorsky1

@paulslater3 here are some more details:

News Feed - we sell a tool for this specific purpose for more info see: Steegle News for Google Sites.
Page-level permissions - Google Sites offers nothing to help here so, you're right, it has to be separate sites and then link to them. This means that you would need to provide some navigation back to the other sites and try and maintain that across the multiple sites.
Publishing - as you have correctly I dentified Publishing is all or nothing and there's no granular publishing option. One of our frust bits of feedback to the Google Sites Team (about 5 years ago) is for granular publishing options and nothing has ever come of it. If you have made separate sites then publishing would only publish that site, but that site in its entirity.

If you have any further questions let us know.

paulslater3

@StephenHind Really appreciate all the feedback, thanks.

bill_pier3

This is correct that there is not an equivalent news feed facility from the Classic Google Sites. There are however other solutions, and of course you could develop your own custom facility. Steegle has a news gadget that may fit your needs. As for Current, like several other Google services, it is not available to embed in Google Sites, (to my knowledge).
Page Level permissions has been a long sought after feature in New Google Sites. Your solution is one that I have used, to separate sections of an intranet site with different editor responsibilities. And with Themes it should be much easier now to establish a consistent look & feel to the overall site.
This is correct, that Publishing updates the entire site with current edits on all pages viewable. If a page is still being edited and isn't critical, it can be hidden from navigation when Publishing the site, while editing continues until it's ready. Another technique that I've used with pages that require yet more work when other pages are ready to be Published, is to make a copy of the page prior to the start of editing (if I know that the work is substantial), keeping the copy page hidden from navigation until ready to publish; then hide/delete the original page, rename the new page to the old name and Publish the site. On the rare occasion that I've started work on a section or page, and found the scope of work more than anticipated, I have made a copy of the page with a temporary name and then Restored the original page version (not the whole site!); this way I have the original page and the new page (hidden) being edited and go ahead and Publish the site to make visible other page edits.

I hope these suggestions help.

Bill

paulslater3

@bill_pier3 Really appreciate all the feedback.

For item #1

have been having issues embedding a Google Current Stream into my Google Site. When I add the URL into the embed component I get the error:

"Can't embed due to provider site permissions. URL will display as a text link"

Oddly enough back in December 2021 I was able to embed a stream URL, but it no longer appears to work. I am however able to create a Community within Google Currents and embed that URL into my Google Site, so I may go with that route since Streams and Communities both display the same way on my Google Site.

Regarding item #3

I had to read that response twice, but I completely understand your work-around for pages that are already live but may need edits and those edits are not ready to go live yet. Hopefully Google will allow for single page publishing at some point soon.... fingers crossed.

Again, really appreciate the help here.

EmsIdeas

Thanks for the tactics, @bill_pier3! The solution of hiding new pages undergoing a substantial edit seems clever.

My understanding is that pages hidden from the navigation are still indexed in search though. Have you experienced any issues with people searching for the published page and finding the hidden page that is in the process of being edited?

Curious if anyone has any good ideas at how to make it as unlikely as possible for people to find a hidden page and/or to make it as obvious as possible that it is under construction.

icrew

I have some recollection (hopefully correct??) that @gemma_mcclure2 was tackling similar sorts of issues recently. Maybe she has some thoughts on this one?

gemma_mcclure2

Hi Ian, you are absolutely correct - this is something we have been looking at.

We have also embedded our community into our site, but we wanted something like a news feed functionality or a comments function so colleagues can interact with articles (a bit like you can do on you tube) so Google Sites becomes an interactive communications tool as well as information etc...

So if anyone knows of anything that would or if this would be in the new feature road map for sites that would be awesome!

paulslater3

Thanks so much for your post, and yes that's exactly how my company is looking at the new intranet. Not just a source for company news but also to encourage more interactive communications amongst teams and the organization itself.

I'll probably go with Currents Communities for now since that seems to work.

cathyhoney

It's so good to finally find other organisations who are using Google sites/Currents combo as their intranets! I've just replied to @paulslater3 post regarding the demise of Currents. We have a beast of an intranet, over 50 plus hubs (internal name for Sites) all built on Google sites, owned and edited by each individual team/subject area and I provide oversight and management and ownership to the central hub (Corporate Hub). Until recently we didn't have the full Enterprise version of Google workspace so it meant there was no way to search between them so I had to manually create a "Where do I Find" page on the Corporate Hub that provided a road map of where to find info. We have just purchased full Enterprise version which I believe has an integrated search which will solve some of the issues.

As regards Currents, we are using it our "internal social media tool/discussion platform as there is no commenting engine for Google Sites. We had just reached a tipping point where staff were beginning to adopt Currents and share content so tbh it's a bit frustrating that it is now going to be replaced. I will have a look at the tool Steegle has developed to see if that is something we may consider rather than Spaces, but without having sight of what Spaces will look like, it's hard to plan and know whether it is fit for purpose!

paulslater3

@cathyhoney

Finally! Someone else like me!

50 plus Google Sites? Holy smokes... that's a lot. I haven't pushed out our intranet yet but I envision requiring multiple Google Sites too based on how content author / publisher permissions work (there are none) and the fact that you can't publish individual pages but the entire Google Site if you create a new page or even just make an edit to an existing page. It's great to learn that someone else is using Google Sites / Google Currents for an intranet.

It's great that you hit that tipping point with Google Currents where internal staff is starting to engage on your intranet. That's one of our goals, to give people a reason to go to our company intranet instead of just once a year when Open Enrollment rolls along. If we can engage with staff on the intranet it helps with retention of staff, keeps staff informed, opens up opportunities for staff to join company initiatives, and more!

I would love to pick your brain on pros/cons that you faced with your current setup.

paulslater3

@cathyhoney

Quick question related to using multiple Google Sites for a single Intranet. How do you link them together so the user journey doesn't get confusing? Each Google Site has it's own separate navigation so I can't figure out how to manage navigation without losing our users on their journey... and also determining what the main Google Site should be to enter the intranet..

alfiepenfold

It was great to see your posts @cathyhoney and @paulslater3 - I'm about to embark on a similar Google Sites project. 40 or so different teams each with their own intranet presence managed locally but coordinated centrally. I'm not sure whether one site with many editors, or many sites each with one editor would be best.

It would be great to hear about some of the things you've learnt along the way if you'd be up for a quick chat?

bill_pier3

The trouble I've seen with one site and many editors, is that publishing the site is only available for the entire site and not individual pages.

So perhaps a central site with links to other sites with one editor each would be preferable.

JSingletaryLS

I too am using google sites for an intranet and am running into similar limitations. I also made a request to filter the search within organization feature as depending on the search criteria, emails between employees and HR or management can return as search results! hopefully someone can help us implement some of these quality improvements!

SitesDesigner

My current approach to Google Sites for intranet within Google Workspace is to treat it as the static informational wiki. Companies often come to me to leverage Sites as a resource center, pulling together policies, procedures and FAQ. Google Chat and Google Spaces fulfill the need for a social dynamic forum. Obviously I would love to see more cooperation between the two modes.