Remove a Doc
When you delete a doc, its URL is also deleted. Visiting the old URL will return a 404 - Page Not Found
error, which negatively impacts customer experience and can damage our SEO.
To prevent this, create a 301 redirect. Follow these steps to ensure a smooth transition and maintain the health of our docs site.
Prerequisites​
- You'll need a GitHub account to contribute to Sumo Logic Docs.
- We recommend adding 2FA protection when contributing to Sumo Logic repositories.
- Help us keep Sumo Logic Docs open and inclusive by reviewing our Code of Conduct.
Step 1: Create a 301 redirect​
As an example, let's say there are two docs called Nginx App and Nginx (Legacy) App, and we need to deprecate the latter.
- In your GitHub authoring tool (like VS Code), open the cid-redirects.json file, which contains all 301 redirects.
- Add a redirect from the old URL you're removing to the new URL containing the equivalent content.
"/docs/integrations/web-servers/nginx-legacy": "/docs/integrations/web-servers/nginx",
Step 2: Update internal links​
Ensure any internal links pointing to the deleted doc are updated to the new URL.
- In your GitHub authoring tool, run a search for the URL you're removing. For example, if the legacy URL appears in other documents, replace all instances with the new URL.
- Check with a Sumo Logic subject matter expert to confirm that you can replace all with the new URL.
Never do a "Find All > Replace All", as this can break unrelated items like image paths. Replace each URL on a one-by-one basis.
Step 3: Delete the doc file​
Delete the actual .md doc file from the repository (in this example, it'd be docs/integrations/web-servers/nginx-legacy.md
).
Step 4: Remove doc from navigation​
Remove the doc from the navigation menu (sidebars.ts file).
Step 5: Publish and test the redirect​
Verify that the redirect works correctly and leads to the intended destination.
Optional steps​
Add deprecation note​
If you're deprecating one solution in favor of another (like in the above Nginx and Nginx (Legacy) example), you may also want to add a note in the new doc stating the legacy solution has been deprecated. Check with a subject matter expert to be sure.
Hide from search engine results​
It can take months for an old URL to drop from Google search engine results. If you need to hide a page immediately from Google, open a GitHub Issue and provide the details for our site admin.