Archived status

According to the Nielsen Norman Group and many government websites, it is good practice to keep most web pages on a website even if they are not current/applicable anymore, to provide context, historical info and so that other pages linking to them will never be directed to a broken link. That being said, it is also important to identify that old content with a notice such as “This page is archived and has not been altered or updated since it was archived” and to have the possibility to remove it from the search (marking it with noindex) to prevent confusing people that are searching for new/current content.

Since 35% of the web uses WordPress to create web content, it would be nice if WordPress took those web content managing/archiving best practices into consideration and included an Archived status for pages and posts with such functionalities (add a notice, noindex). This would not only be useful for news and government websites, but also for some companies (ie. “This product is no longer being manufactured”).

I know a plugin was created (Archived Post Status), but it is no longer being maintained and it was not really created with these “good practices” in mind.

Here are some sources on the subject of web page archiving/removal:

Best practices from NN Group (general)
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/web-pages-must-live-forever/

Gov.uk – Withdrawing and removing content, and labelling content from previous governments
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/gov-uk-content-retention-and-withdrawal-archiving-policy

Canada.ca – Managing and Archiving Web Content
https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/modern-emerging-technologies/information-management/managing-archiving-web-content.html

Thank you! ??

• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Jan Dembowski.