Can’t change permalink

I think I recreated your problem.

It looks like it works when you hit Edit, make the change, and hit OK.

But if you go away and come back, it is back to the old permalink.

The solution: hit the Update button after hitting OK.

Quite a number of things are like that in WordPress: hitting Update is the only way that you make the changes permanent.

Thanks for the quick reply, however I just tried your solution and it didn’t work. I changed the permalink for my contact page to g36cairsoftgun.com/contact and hit OK and then hit Update, but it still didn’t change the permalink of the page. Earlier, I tried deleting the contact page too and making a new page with my original permalink but it wont let me change it back to the original permalink (maybe what I did was the problem… deleting the page?)

Anymore solutions / ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve been playing around with a local install of wordpress… I remember what happened now, I wanted to change the order wordpress was displaying my pages, I wanted the contact page to appear last so I deleted my contact page hoping that when I made it again that it would appear at the end of my site menu. I tried doing this on my local installation and I have the exact same problem: if you delete a page and try to make that same page with the same title / permalink you can use the same title but not the same permalink.

I was having that problem. It turned out that because I was still retaining the original page, even though I’d un-published it. Until I completely deleted the previous page I couldn’t change it. Once I did the problem went away.

I know that some people have been having that problem after first deleting an unwanted page and then making a new one, and for that…I don’t have an answer. :-/ But that’s what happened for me.

Right:

1. go to Posts > Edit
2. Then click on the ‘Trash’ link at the top.
3. Click ‘Delete Permanently’ for the old version of the post

That should do it ??

shahar, thank you!

That was exactly what I needed. I never realized there was a trash section, where old posts that I deleted were being stored…

Hi Forum,

I’m new here and new to wordpress. Have been dabbling for about the last 2 weeks, and I’m very impressed.

I had the same problem as described here, brought about by creating a page, trashing it and then recreating it. The method outlined above worked – in summary: a) completely delete old page from trash b) edit new page and change permalink – press ok c) press update to commit the changes to the page.

Thanks for the answers which solved my problem so easily.

I was thrilled to land on this thread to solve a similar issue with using a permalink on a previously-trashed page, but I’m not having the success you all were. Here’s my deal:

I made a “Contact” page so the permalink was https://www.mysite/contact. I trashed it, created a new “Contact” page, but now the permalink insist that it be https://www.mysite/contact-2. I tried changing it back to /contact, then hi the Ok button, but it always changed back to /contact-2.

So…I tried one more time: trashed /contact-2, created a new page (“contact”), and now the permalink insist it be /contact-3

Any suggestions? Is the page history stored somewhere in my ftp?

Thanks!

Hi Aravere
I had the same problem today.
Try doing it this slightly different way – it worked for me:)
First click on the ‘edit’ button next to the page permalink.
Then type in your new ending.
Now DO NOT SAVE IT – just click the ‘Update’ button.
If it doesn’t work at first try to keep your new text highlighted while you click the ‘Update’ button.
I had one stubborn page which would not change at first but when I tried this it worked.
Good luck!
Jack

This is what worked for me: The old pages were stuck in the “Trash”. Go to the “Edit Pages” page, look for the “Trash” link (it’s small, and near the top). DELETE PERMANENTLY any of your old drafts that were stuck in the trash.

Then, it should let you re-name your current page.

-Shauna

Ah…thanks, Shauna. Good tip!!! That makes a lot of sense, as it wouldn’t let you use the original name you wanted since the previous pages had not yet been permanently deleted. Many thanks!!!! Nice profile, pic, BTW. ??

You are very welcome! ??

After reading this thread I’m still struggling with this issue.

I have a contact page. I want it to be in /contact and NOT /contact-2. WordPress will let me name it anything but /contact

Brand new installation of WordPress with a new, clean database. The trash is empty, there are no drafts. I cannot change the name to simply read contact as a permalink.

Having a contact page with a URL of /contact-2/ is not acceptable in my situation.

Any ideas?

Brand new installation of WordPress with a new, clean database. The trash is empty, there are no drafts. I cannot change the name to simply read contact as a permalink.

I’m having the same issue.

Great tip Shahar, saved me a lot of grief :]