Correctly Deleting a Previously-Published Page, Post, or Program/FLEX Course Umbrella in Public Website WordPress

In your browser:

1. Go to the live page you wish to delete and copy the exact address from the address bar.
   • Note: The web address should start with “https://www.bcit.ca/…” Do not use the “https://kb.bcit.ca/…” address, as this will falsely return no results no matter what.
2. Go to the Checkbot tool (you may need to login with your usual BCIT username and password if you not already done so recently).
3. Click on the Search link at the top of the page.
   
4. Paste in the link you copied in step 1 and hit enter.
   

You can now go through the list of results to remove manually created existing links (if needed, see the section below on interpreting the results).

The Checkbot Search tool will return results for all incoming links to existing content. Some of these reported incoming links require you to take action to remove them and others don’t (because the link will disappear automatically when the content is deleted). It’s impossible to perfectly distinguish between these at first glance, and Checkbot can’t tell the difference.

Rarely, no results will be reported. This is so unlikely that it’s worth checking that you haven’t accidentally mis-typed or mis-copied the URL. If, after checking that the URL is accurate and there are still no results, you can proceed to Step two. In almost all cases, however, there will be results and you will need to check those results to ensure that you have removed any manually created links to the content you wish to delete before it is deleted, to prevent future broken links.

Understanding links to posts

For blog posts you will likely see at least a few results when using this tool.

Links which will automatically disappear when the post is deleted (and which you do not need to deal with manually) include:

• The automatically added links in each blog post that direct readers to the previous and next post (these will be reported for only the prior and subsequent links for the specific blog post you’re deleting).
• Links which are showing up as a result of dynamically generated content (usually in panels).

Understanding links to pages

For almost all pages you check, there will be at least a short list of results, and sometimes quite a long one.

Links which will automatically disappear when the page is deleted (and which you do not need to deal with manually) include:

• Links to that page which appear within the page itself.
• Links in the navigation menu of every other page that shares a navigation menu with the page you’re deleting.
• Links which are showing up as a result of dynamically generated content (usually in panels). This is more rare with pages than with other content types).

Understanding links to Program Umbrellas

All Program Umbrellas will have at least a short list of results. Links which will automatically disappear when the Program Umbrella is deleted (and which you do not need to deal with manually) include:

• Links back to the Program Umbrella from each Program it covers.
• Links to the Program Umbrella from the Sector page.
• Links to the Program Umbrella from itself.

Examples of dynamic links that requires no action

This is an incomplete list, but hopefully it is suggestive of the types of things to look for when making this determination:

• Navigation menu link to a Page from another Page in the same site:
  
• “Related programs” link to a Program Umbrella from a Program it covers:
  
• Dynamic panel (RSS feed panel) link to a blog post:
  

To check each result to determine whether you need to make a manual change to remove the link:

1. Click on the next link in the list of results. It will automatically open in a new tab in your browser.
2. Right-click on the page and click on View Page Source in the contextual menu.
3. Type Ctrl-F on your keyboard to bring up the search tool and paste the URL (still in your clipboard) into the search field.
   
4. Navigate through the search results using the up and down arrows and note for yourself any links that will need to be changed manually (see the above section if you’re not sure whether a link is manually created or dynamic).

Once you’ve made your short list of links that need to be manually changed, it’s time to make those changes. If you have access to the content in question, navigate to the content in question, create a revision, and modify the links, then submit to your Publisher. You should do this prior to requesting that the page be deleted.

If you don’t have the necessary access (if the content containing the link is in a Section you don’t have access to, or if it is in a Commons site), provide the short list to your Publisher when you request that they delete the page.

In WordPress:

1. Click on Tools > Content Search in the WordPress menu.
   
2. Paste only the portion of the link that comes after “www.bcit.ca” into the Search For field and click the Search button.
   • Example: if you wanted to delete a page at “www.bcit.ca/about/thing/example/”, you would enter “/about/thing/example/” (without the quotation marks) into the field.
   • Note: As it says on the search page, “The text you enter in the search field… will be searched for exactly as you enter it, including quotation marks and all other special characters. … Do not add extra quotation marks around all or a portion of your query as this will likely produce no results at all.”

In the results, you can sort by multiple elements, including Title, Post Type, and Section Name.

When you mouse over each result, you’ll see a View link appear below the title. If your currently selected Section matches the Section of a search result, you’ll be able to see an Edit link as well, which you could click on to go directly to that content to change or remove the link.

If you try to delete a page that is a parent to other pages, WordPress won’t let you do it. That’s because those “child” pages would otherwise lose their connection to the rest of the site which would create a pretty large mess. There’s a relatively simple check that will make clear whether you can safely delete the page or whether you’ll need to take further steps before doing so. Navigate to the page you wish to delete and look at how it appears in the navigation menu. If the page title in the menu is in mixed case (both capitals and lower case letters) and does not have a side- or down-pointing caret character (>) character next to it  indicating that there are further pages below it in the site hierarchy, the page does not have any dependent child pages. It can be deleted without breaking the site structure. In the example navigation menu in the image to the right, menu items highlighted in green have no child pages and can be safely deleted. Menu items highlighted in red currently have child pages and deleting those pages would break the site and make a mess. You’ll need to adjust the site structure before deleting the pages.

Having first done all of the recommended checks in the procedures above:

1. Locate the Page/Post/Program or FLEX Course Umbrella in the appropriate listing within WordPress.
2. When you hover your mouse over the listing, various options will appear. Click on the Trash link.
   

The content will now move to the Trash within WordPress and will no longer be accessible on the website (because of caching there may be a slight delay in some cases).

If you deleted published content by mistake or before performing all of the important checks and fixes outlined above, or if you simply change your mind, you can easily restore deleted content.

In WordPress, with the correct Section selected:

1. Navigate to the appropriate content type listing (Pages, Posts, etc.).
2. Click on Trash in the filters across the top of the content listing.
   
3. Locate the content you wish to restore in the list.
4. Hover your mouse over the listing and click the now visible Restore link.
   

Important: Whatever content you restore is immediately published. If you need to make any changes to it, we recommend being ready to make those changes quickly. Restoring deleting content works best when little time has passed between deletion and restoration, as the longer it’s been the likelier that other changes have also occurred for the site. The restored content will have the same permalink that it had before it was deleted… as long as other content hasn’t taken over that permalink since it was deleted or other alterations to the site structure haven’t changed it. Restored Pages will also return to the same location in the site structure… if they can. If the previous Parent page has been deleted and not restored, the restored Page will need a new Parent page set in order to properly show up in the site structure. Especially if some time has passed between deleting and restoring content, it’s very important to check that everything looks good with your restored content and, for a Page, that it’s showing up in menus as you’d expect.