Consider carefully when removing content from your website.
- Inbound links and search indexing
- Records retention
- Backups & Archives
- User role permissions
- How to Delete
Unpublish State
Once a page is “live” there is a good chance it has been indexed by Google and other search engines or even linked to from another website. So, try not to ever Publish a page before it is ready.
If your intent is for the content to no longer be available then you should delete it.
If you need a record of the content:
- Clone the page. This will generate a new unpublished page with a new URL address that Google has never seen.
- Then delete the original version.
Deleted & Unpublished Page Results in Search
Google will take a while before it re-indexes the site so the page may still show up in search results. Google will keep indexing a page that is unpublished longer than if the page is deleted.
As long as it is not cached, visitors to a deleted page will see the Page Not Found page. If you unpublished the page, visitors will see the Access Denied page.
Google sees a code in the header. On the page not found page the code is “404 Not Found” on the Access Denied page the code is “403 Forbidden.”
Permission to Unpublish & Delete
All content editors can unpublish any content.
Editors with the Content Contributor User Role can only delete content they created.
Most of our main content editors have the Content Administrator User Role and can unpublish and delete any content. Learn more about Editor Access, Workflow, Approvals & Roles
Delete
Find the page in the Existing Content List. In the Operations column, click the arrow next to Edit and you’ll see the option to delete the page.
Click Delete and confirm you really want to delete the page. It will be as if the page never existed so be careful there are no other pages linking to it on the website or from anywhere else on the Internet.
