What happens when multiple teams manage website content without governance?

Without governance, you get chaos: inconsistent branding, duplicate content, pages with zero traffic dragging down SEO, outdated PDFs with old logos, content published without approval, and no one knowing who owns what when people leave the company. Multiple teams end up stepping on each other, with marketers rewriting homepages on a whim and developers pushing surprise updates.

How do I know if my website needs a governance framework?

If you can't definitively answer these questions, you need governance: Who can upload content and when? Who's tracking hundreds of pages with zero Google visitors? What happens to legacy content during rebrands? Who manages the outdated PDFs with old branding? Is your site compliant with legal requirements in all locations you operate? If multiple teams contribute content without clear ownership, governance is essential.

What's the biggest risk of not having website governance in 2025?

AI amplifies every governance problem. AI tools can now generate content, metadata, and translations faster than humans can review them. Without governance, you risk publishing AI-generated content that's biased, inaccurate, or non-compliant—with no audit trail. When AI moves faster than your approval processes, mistakes turn into headlines.

How should website governance change with AI tools like ChatGPT?

Your governance framework now needs AI oversight: clear rules for who creates, edits, and approves AI-generated content; records of what AI tools were used and when; bias and accuracy checks for AI outputs; audit trails to trace AI-generated content; and deletion rules for retiring AI content. Governance must cover both people and machines working together.

Who should lead website governance - marketing, IT, or someone else?

Website governance works best with a dedicated governance lead or steering committee that includes marketing, IT, legal, and product teams. Marketing typically owns content strategy, IT handles technical implementation, legal ensures compliance, and product manages user experience. A single point of accountability prevents the finger-pointing that happens when everyone assumes someone else is in charge.

What's the first step to create a website governance framework?

Start with a content audit to understand what you have: inventory all pages, PDFs, and digital assets; identify content owners (or lack thereof); document current approval processes; list all tools and who has access; and map compliance requirements by location. This audit reveals the gaps and chaos that governance will fix, making it easier to get buy-in for the framework.

Create a Website Governance Framework

The Problems of Governing a Mid to Large-scale Website
What is a Website Governance Framework?
AI Changed the Rules
The Benefits of a Governance Framework
Getting Started

Who is doing what, and when, to my website?!#?

If your company hosts a mid to large-scale website with hundreds of thousands of pages, you likely have multiple, geographically dispersed, siloed teams and a range of content creators. The question is: who’s doing what, when, and under whose rules?

Are portions of your site inconsistent in voice, look and feel and brand messaging? Who can upload content, and what happens when content is inconsistent or out of date?

Who’s tracking the hundreds of pages that haven’t had a single Google visitor in months and are weighing the whole site down?

Who is responsible for performance? How is it measured and by whom?

It’s not just policies and procedures. It’s control. It’s clarity. It’s knowing who owns what and stopping chaos before it starts. No more marketers rewriting the homepage on a whim. No more rogue devs pushing surprise updates at 10 p.m.

Sound familiar?

We worked with a company that had about 25 people touching their website – marketing, sales, product teams, IT.

Nobody was really in charge. No process for anything. Someone would delete pages without setting up redirects.

There were tons of old PDFs just sitting there. Duplicate files everywhere.

When they decided to relaunch the site, all that mess made everything take twice as long. Everyone kept saying “I thought someone else was handling that.”

Shall I continue?

Who’s minding the content lifecycle—by section and across the entire site?

What happens to legacy pages when you rebrand or relaunch part of the site?

What about the hundreds of outdated PDFs still carrying the old logo and messaging? Who’s in charge of those?

And what happens when people leave the company; is there content continuity? Does anyone even know what content they owned??

How about compliance? Is the team fully cognitive and complaint with the relevant geographical-based website compliance requirements at location Y? Is all of your website compliant with the relevant legal requirements?

If you or your colleagues are unable to answer all these questions definitively, your company needs a website governance framework. And you’re not alone in your frustration. As websites become increasingly complex and expand in terms of the number of stakeholders and the volume of content, a governance framework is essential.

We can help!

AI Changed the Rules.

AI tools are creating content, writing metadata, even making decisions. But who’s checking their work?

If ChatGPT writes your product descriptions or translates your content, who’s making sure it’s accurate and on-brand?

The risks are real: content gets published without human review, AI generates biased or incorrect information, and when something goes wrong, there’s no audit trail.

Your governance framework needs to cover AI oversight – who approves AI content, how you track what tools were used, and when to retire AI-generated material that’s no longer accurate. Outline AI oversight: when it can be used, reviewed, or retired. Download our AI Employee Acceptable Use Policy to guide your teams.

Governance isn’t just about people anymore. It’s about people and machines—working together without blowing things up.

What your governance framework needs now:

AI oversight – Who creates, edits, approves?
Clear records – What AI was used? When? For what purpose?
Audit plans – Can you trace back what AI generated?
Bias checks – Is it accurate, brand-safe, and legal?
Deletion rules – Do you know what AI-generated content to retire—and when?

Without governance, AI moves faster than your team can.
And that’s when mistakes turn into headlines.

What is a website governance framework?

Website governance is the framework for maintaining a corporate website.

It provides set of policies and procedures for managing all aspects of a website.
It provides staff with the guidance to create, manage and measure content across all digital properties. Identifies a single point of accountability including the skills required, staffing, roles & team structures.
It guides the development and implementation of new capabilities, development pipeline, and related project work.

The benefits of a governance framework

A governance framework establishes best practices, policies and procedures related to the content, people and processes for websites (or intranets). Having a well-planned and documented governance framework helps to:

Responsible use of AI and ChatGPT-style tools
Avoid duplication and silos
Speed time to completion
Reduce costs
Boost performance
Maintain a consistent brand presence
Ensure compliance

The framework should establish:

Defined website goals and objectives
Guidance for creating, managing and measuring content across all digital properties
Guidance to prioritize the development and implementation of new capabilities, the development pipeline, and related project work
A single point of accountability including the skills required, staffing, roles and team structures
A review process to measure traffic, engagement and conversion
Standards that can be easily replicated by all team members in any location
A checklist to ensure a review process, documentation and budgets are in place

Click image to expand

Getting started with your governance framework

Creating a governance framework may appear to be a daunting task. The following guide help kickstart the creation of your framework. Aim to create a strong foundation that you can continue building on over time.

Who's Responsible (People & Roles)

Content Ownership & Approval

Who owns what content? Define clear owners, reviewers, and approvers?
Brand and messaging standards – how do you ensure compliance?
Who owns campaign and demand generation efforts?

Training & Access Management

Training and onboarding – who handles tools, standards, and AI use training?
Do you know who has access and permissions for tools, by role?
What are remote work expectations for collaboration, communication, security?

External Relationships

Vendor relationships and access control – who manages these?
External channels like Wikipedia, YouTube – who maintains them?
Cross-functional coordination (marketing + legal, product + IT, etc.) – who ensures alignment?

Additional Considerations

Is there a documented team responsible for performance reporting across channels?
Are onboarding expectations clear for both internal teams and agencies?
Who ensures vendor access aligns with business, compliance, and platform needs?

How Work Gets Done

Content lifecycle: Create > Review > Publish > Archive. Who handles each stage?
Review and approval workflows for new and updated content
Content audits, accessibility checks, SEO reviews. What’s the schedule?
Making content discoverable by search engines and AI tools
Workflows for relaunches, migrations, microsites, and one-off projects
Sunsetting old content and removing unused assets. What’s the process?
Cross-functional project planning roles (product launches, campaigns, etc.)
Performance reviews tied to KPIs (traffic, engagement, conversion)
Campaign QA: lead nurture flows, naming conventions, UTM tracking
Vendor onboarding and oversight

Additional Considerations

Have personas been created and aligned to key journeys?
Is there a content calendar and lifecycle tracking system?
Are templates and revision standards shared across content teams?
How are audits managed across non-HTML assets like PDFs and video?
Who initiates content sunsetting and cleanup before migrations?
What’s the taxonomy and metadata governance model?

Rules & Standards

Is this information available to all people who interact the website?

Compliance standards (GDPR, accessibility, localization requirements)
Publishing, retention, and deletion rules
Brand standards, style guides, metadata requirements
Campaign tracking, privacy, and performance attribution rules
AI oversight: when it can be used, who reviews it, when to retire content
Translation and localization by region or market

Additional Considerations

Are SEO and accessibility policies up to date and enforced?
Who is responsible for revisiting policy cadence and revision cycles?
Are there standards for using or auditing AI-generated assets?

Tools & Platforms

Tool inventory (CMS, analytics, SEO, accessibility, DAM, CRM, A/B testing)
Platform ownership and access rights
Training guides for tool onboarding and permissions
Integration workflows (Marketo, Salesforce, campaign tracking)
Dashboards and SEO performance tools for shared visibility
UTM tagging, campaign naming, and tracking consistency

Additional Considerations

Are tools like Data Studio or GA available to the right people with editing/view access?
Is analytics tracking validated across platforms?
Do SEO audits and accessibility tests follow a defined schedule?
Are tool updates and training tracked?

AI Governance

AI tools now generate content, metadata, translations, and strategic decisions. Without governance, automation can move faster than your risk controls.

Four questions your governance plan must answer:

Who reviews AI-generated content for bias, accuracy, or non-compliance?
Are AI-created assets (pages, PDFs, translations) subject to human approval?
Is there a record of what tools were used and for what purpose?
What’s the policy when AI output needs to be corrected, updated, or removed? Governance ensures AI adds value without introducing avoidable risk.

Next

Download the Employee Acceptable AI Use Policy

Website Governance Checklist

Looking for a quick reference? Download the Website Governance Checklist as a companion guide to this framework. It summarizes the key people, process, policy, and tool responsibilities covered here.

Governance ensures AI adds value without introducing avoidable risk. Assess your organization’s AI readiness with this diagnostic tool.

Co-Author

Meghan Soule

Inbound Digital Engagement Manager at Pegasystems

We make content audits painless

Large websites tend to grow messy and inefficient over time. Outdated or low-quality quality content rarely gets any visibility and not only adds bloat to your site, but negatively affects your UX and SEO success.

So, if you haven’t done it before, it’s time to conduct a content audit to identify these ghost town pages, and then, revise or remove them.

It's content inventory time - start your own audit!

Content Inventory & Audit » Step-by-Step Guide to Running Your 1st Audit

What is a website governance framework and why does my company need one?

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