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deleted post showing in top posts and pages

  1. musicdoc1
    Member

    Please tell me if you can how I might better handle the next instance of a need to re-post without distressing my subscribers to the degree I must have this time. In all I had two date changes to the original post before I deleted it, then later republished it. That's a total of four permalinks, possibly all picked up by Google, for a single post which no long exists. I'll try to explain:

    The permalink to the post http://songbook1.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/i-dont-like-that-face-you-wear-first-song-recorded-by-williams-walker-1901/, was later modified with date changes to the 19th and 20th of February. After I expanded the original content and created a new post, I removed the content from this post and left a short message with a link to the new one.

    This sort of thing happens from time to time and I've yet to work out a satisfactory way of dealing with it. Ideally I would like to send an email to all subscribers explaining the removal or one post in favor of an expanded or heavily revised version of it. Why not change the content and modify the permalink? I did that at first, but nobody was coming. Creating a new post appeared to be the best option with regard to notifying subscribers of the revisions.

    Today, I republished one of the original versions, date modified from 20 to 19 February, because someone had tried to find that version of it today and received a 404 error. I didn't realize that this would be a new post, and sent to all my subscribers. I almost immediately deleted it, but not before it got on my daily top posts list.

    Why is a deleted post in the top posts list? It's not even in my site stats, but shows up in the sidebar as the eleventh most popular post. I'm going to reduce the number of displayed items to ten but this might not get rid of it as I expect more subscribers will probably try to visit it.

    Another issue regarding this deleted post. If I click on it I don't got the 404 error you'd expect. Instead it hangs in loading mode for several seconds before timing out with the message "The page isn't redirecting properly." This last might be a browser issue.
    Blog url: http://songbook1.wordpress.com/

  2. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    Since the post of course existed when people visited it, it was recorded in your stats. It will be gone eventually.

    If you're just modifying dates, don't delete it. The old permalinks will actually redirect to the new permalinks. Otherwise, you're doing everything else as best as you can.

    As for the last issue, that is definitely a browser problem.

  3. musicdoc1
    Member

    Thanks. What are the chances of WordPress.com having an option to email a short message to each subscriber. This would eliminate the necessity of sending a general message. I really haven't found a satisfactory way of doing this. A new post for a short message isn't practical for this site. I wouldn't want to keep it up for more than a day or two. I sometimes put messages in the tagline or subtitle area of the blog, but this too is unsatisfactory, and impractical. It can't be left up for long without becoming a distraction.

  4. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    Besides posting a short blog post, further contact with subscribers is a consideration, but probably unlikely.

  5. musicdoc1
    Member

    Does every WordPress.com "email follower" of a site receive email messages upon a new post?

    A related question that's come up recently:

    I've been in the habit of moving a post or page into pending status while doing work on it, or, in the case of a post, to get if off the front page for various reasons such as no one's visiting it, it's too long, etc. Only very recently I noticed that I cannot change a post back from pending to posted anymore. Wasn't this allowed previously, or my memory amiss? This means that, apparently, I have to republish a post after it's been in pending status. That's silly. I just want to change it back to published from pending, not to republish it. But I'm not sure whether it's really an issue. Does republishing the post from pending status result in the subscribers receiving email notifications of a new post?

  6. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    Yes, email followers receive new posts via email.

    Instead, switch the post status to Draft, then back to Published when you're ready. Subscribers will not receive re-published posts.

  7. musicdoc1
    Member

    Right. But why is Draft a better choice than Pending when revising as I've described.

  8. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    Draft removes it from all possibility of a publish-related status. In a sense, Draft is "Unpublished."

  9. musicdoc1
    Member

    macmanx,

    Got it. But that may not be what I want. Sometimes I want to temporarily remove a post or page from the published status for one reason or another. I might not want it on the front page anymore, or I might want to revise it before it's visited again.

    So, I've the two options. Switch it to pending status, or to draft status. Until recently, I'd done either of these interchangeably and the effect seemed to be the same. When you toggle the status menu of a published post you can change it to either pending or draft. However, when it's in pending status, you can't toggle it back to published. I seem to recall being able to do so until fairly recently. Now you got to select the publish button again.

    And sometimes when I do this it seems to behave as a new post. The published post goes to that weird new published post page, and I suspect that subscribers may be being notified of a new post, even though it's only a change of status.

    Today, however, I changed this post

    http://songbook1.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=76631&action=edit

    briefly to pending status, and after changing my mind about removing from the front page for now, I almost immediately republished it. But it didn't behave as if it was a new post as has sometimes happened when I do the same thing recently.

    I wonder whether if I were to use "draft" rather that "pending" for the same purpose described above, wouldn't publishing the post from draft status be just as apt, if not more so, to trigger the new post page to display?

    Sorry if that was too confusing. Let me no if I can clarify anything for you. And thanks again for your assistance.

    Jim

  10. musicdoc1
    Member

    Let me know (not "Let me no")

  11. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    No, if you publish from Draft status, it'll still be considered an old post, so this is pretty much the preferred method for what you're trying to do.

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