Deleting a page is a straightforward task, but if not done with care it can leave behind a mess of broken links and broken navigation. Before doing anything, think about the page you want to delete. Do other pages link to it? Do other pages use it as a ‘related item’? Is it part of an exhibit or topic set? Does it have links on it that are the only way to navigate to supporting pages or images or PDFs? You will need to clean all of that up before deleting your target page.

Look carefully at the page you want to delete

Does it have links on it that are the only way to navigate to supporting pages or images or PDFs? Think about each one of these. Will you be removing these? If not:make appropriate links to them from other pages (that will not be deleted.) If so, delete them before continuing.

Does it have any child pages, that is, is it the Parent of any other pages? If so, those child pages will all need to have a new Parent page assigned before you delete your target page.

Think about where the page fits into the rest of American Centuries

Do other pages link to it? Do other pages use it as a ‘related item’? Is it part of an exhibit or topic set? Any of those links will be broken if you delete your target page without fixing them.

Find the links. You can use the Search function on the public website to find all of the pages that contain links to your page.

• Go to your target page in your web browser on the public American Centuries website. Your browser will show the URL (web address) of your page. Copy that URL, click on the magnifying glass icon in the top left of your page, and paste the URL into the search box that appears. Press Enter to search.
• All of the pages that have links to your page will appear in the search results. Some of those pages have a link in their page content—the main body of the page. Others have a link because they have your page assigned as a Related page, as part of a Topic Set, or as the Featured item in an Exhibit.

Fix the links. Now, you need to edit each page in the search results to fix the links that point to your page, and save the changes. For each search result:

• Right-click on the search result’s title and from the dropdown choose to open that search result in a new tab or window. (Exactly how this works depends on your browser.) Go to that tab or window if your browser doesn’t open it automatically.
• Read through the page to find any links to your original page.
• If your page appears as a Related page, as part of a Topic Set, or as the Featured item in an Exhibit or Activity, edit the page and remove your target page everywhere it appears.
• If your page appears as one or more links in the text of the page, you will need to edit the page and update each link manually before saving the page.
  • Edit the page (from the Edit Page link in the black bar along the top edge).
  • Find a link that you need to fix.
  • Highlight the whole link text by triple-clicking on it, then press Delete or Backspace to remove the entire link.
  • Sometimes a page will include more than one link to your original page. Repeat the process above to correct each link.
• Save the page by clicking on the big red Save button in the top right sidebar. Then click on the View Page link (in bottom left or in top black tool bar). This will take you to the public website so you can view this search results page with your corrected link(s).
• Close the tab or window to go back to your search result, and repeat this whole process to fix any links on the next search result.

Once you have fixed all links to your changed page in each of the search results, you are done with this step.

Warning: Collection item pages

You will need the assistance of a WordPress administrator to properly delete a collection item page. Stop here and find an admin.

Move your target page to the Trash

Edit your page in the WordPress Admin. In the right column find the box labelled “Move to trash” and click on it.