An article I worked on has recently been published to MSDN. The article, Prescriptive Guidance for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites, addresses some common things you should keep in mind in planning, architecting, designing and implementing your Publishing sites. I worked hard to make sure the term "best practices" was not used as it's a term I despise. Why? One man's or woman's best practices could be very different from someone else's or another organization's practices. No one can say if it's right or wrong. All you can do is collect some good guidance and make the best decisions for your situation.

Here's a summary on what the article is all about:

In Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft has taken the best concepts and capabilities from an earlier product, Microsoft Content Management Server 2002, and added them to the SharePoint platform. These new capabilities, known as Web content management (WCM), facilitate the creation of content-centric sites on the SharePoint platform. Although they are SharePoint sites at their core, these sites have additional functionality that is facilitated by publishing features. These SharePoint features add special libraries and lists to SharePoint sites. Sites on which the publishing features are activated are known as publishing sites.

Publishing sites adhere to most, if not all, of the prescriptive guidance and generally accepted best practices for SharePoint sites. However, because of the noncollaborative nature of publishing sites and their generally larger audience, they require additional considerations and planning to be implemented successfully. This article addresses many areas that are specific to deploying successful and scalable publishing sites in the enterprise.

I'd like to thank Spencer Harbar, fellow SharePoint MVP & WCM partner in crime, for input and feedback on this paper.

» MSDN: Prescriptive Guidance for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites