Before archiving a page you need to check for other webpages or knowledge articles that link to it to avoid broken links.
There are three places to check for referring links:
- Finding Links to a Page on the Technology Help and Atlas Websites
- Finding Referring Links in the TDX Knowledge Base
- Finding Links to a Page from Sites External to the Technology Help Website
- Removing Links to the Retiring Page
- Additional Resources
Finding Links to a Page on the Technology Help and Atlas Websites
You can generate a list of referring links to a webpage using a Google DataStudio report the we have created for the Technology Help and Atlas websites.
- Copy the URL of the page from the Technology Help website (or Atlas website) for which you want to find referring links.
- Go to the Link Report in Looker Studio (z.umn.edu/itlinks).
- Note: This table is updated monthly. The datestamp of the last update is in the top right corner. It is possible that results may include references to pages where a link to the page you are retiring has already been removed.
- Paste the URL into the Destination field and press Enter (Return) on your keyboard. The list of URLs refreshes showing only those pages that have links to the URL you entered.
- Note: If the report finds no results, then there are no pages on the Technology Help website or Atlas website that link to the page.
- You can download the link report by clicking on the vertical ellipsis icon in the upper right corner above the results tables and selecting Export.
- Note: the vertical ellipsis icon is not visible until the mouse is in the area just above the table on the right hand side
- Note: the vertical ellipsis icon is not visible until the mouse is in the area just above the table on the right hand side
Page Types
The report groups the page types by Explore Page, Resource Page, and all Other pages
Explore Pages and Resource Pages are views of published content that are automatically generated based on a topic or other criteria. If a page that appears on an Explore or Resource page is retired, it would automatically be removed from the Explore or Resource page. There is a filter in the top right to exclude these types of pages from the results table.
Link Appears As
The last column of the table will display the Node ID if the link on the page is not using the "friendly" URL. In the image below, the page it.umn.edu/working-learning-campus has a link to it.umn.edu/node/129366, which is the node ID for the page it.umn.edu/services-technologies/how-tos/zoom-zoom-google-calendar-add. Either URL is valid to use.
Finding Referring Links in the TDX Knowledge Base
Follow steps in Finding Technology Help Website Links to an Article in TDX
Removing Links to the Retiring Page
Once you have found all the referring links to the page you are retiring, you need to update those pages or work with the owners of those pages to remove the links.