The New Google Sites

Earlier this year, the New Google Sites was enabled for our University domain. They are pretty different from what we are used to, and in some cases that is a good thing!

To refresh all of our memories on why we love having Google Sites in the world:

Google Sites' strength is in its collaboration. Multiple people can be in charge of it. You can setup a site for a committee you're on, and everybody can add and maintain stuff. It is common for committee and project work. Below you'll see an example of using it for education--a great way to set it apart from the main website as a self-contained chunk of curriculum. ("Self Contained Chunk" is a very technical term!)

Here are two GREAT examples of pages made with the new Google Sites:

(the first one is just a screenshot since it's only supposed to be for Master Gardeners and you possibly aren't one of those)

Master Gardener "Flowers for Pollinators" teaching package resource site:

OMGosh. SO PRETTY!! And there are embedded google docs and presentations all over the place. It looks great.

Here's the new Google Site for Extension's big web re-design project:

You can see on both of these how you can add a little branding. I show that in the video below too.

Old Google Sites was very unique looking

Just Tell Me What's Different Already!

• Less distinctively weird looking. More modern.
• Looks good on mobile
• Add anything from Google apps (Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Charts, Videos, or Images, Calendars, Maps, and YouTube videos). All of these show a preview of the file, with the full content viewable after a visitor selects the file. The Old Google Sites did something similar but it's just nicer now.
• You can drag content around and it snaps into place
• You can publish just to your organization (umn.edu) or the world. The World! Mwahahaha!
• You can customize the url (a bit)
• If you want super granular permissioning (like picking what specific people can see specifically), it is possible in the Old Google Sites but I haven't found a way to do that in New Google Sites
• As far as I can tell, you can't convert an Old Google Site to a New Google Site.

Edited to add! University graphics for the New Google Sites available here!

In which I demo making a site in less than 5 minutes