paco.org URL & Redirect Governance
Established: EI-4.4, 2026-08-08
Principle
Public URLs are editorial contracts. Do not rename or remove a published URL merely because a filename, title, taxonomy, or site section changes.
Canonical host
The canonical site origin is:
https://www.paco.org
Jekyll’s site.url must remain aligned with that host unless the production domain changes intentionally.
Post URLs
The default post pattern remains:
/:title/
An explicit permalink in front matter overrides the default and should be treated as authoritative. Existing explicit permalinks are preserved unless an approved migration provides a redirect.
Filename/title mismatches are not, by themselves, URL defects.
Compatibility routes
The following legacy concepts retain compatibility URLs:
| Legacy URL | Canonical destination | Policy |
|---|---|---|
/blog/ |
/writing/ |
permanent compatibility redirect |
/links/ |
/contact/ |
permanent compatibility redirect |
/categories/ |
/categories/ |
URL retained; semantics changed to canonical Subjects |
/blog/ remains a compatibility route only. It is not an active editorial section.
Retired pagination
The obsolete Jekyll pagination configuration generated URLs under /blog/page:num/. The current site no longer uses paginator-driven Blog pages, so jekyll-paginate, paginate, and paginate_path are removed from production configuration.
Do not reintroduce Blog pagination. If a specific historical paginated URL is proven to have meaningful inbound traffic, add an explicit redirect based on evidence rather than creating a speculative wildcard migration.
Deleted and private URLs
A redirect must never be used to resurrect, summarize, expose, or hint at content classified DELETE for privacy reasons.
In particular, the 90 Ben/Sophie privacy records remain excluded from production. Their former URLs are allowed to resolve to the generic 404 surface rather than redirecting to related content.
DELETE is not an archive tier.
Archive-only records
EI-1.5 ARCHIVE status does not require a public URL. An archive-only WordPress record absent from production may remain metadata-only in the editorial ledger and archival source repository.
Do not manufacture public placeholder pages solely to preserve old slugs.
Redirect rules
Add a redirect only when at least one of these is true:
- a published page has moved to a clear canonical replacement;
- a renamed section has a direct semantic successor;
- a verified historical public URL maps safely to retained production content;
- an external/inbound link is known to require compatibility.
Do not redirect unrelated deleted pages to the homepage. A meaningful 404 is preferable to a misleading redirect.
Redirect implementation
Use jekyll-redirect-from for simple compatibility redirects. Keep the redirect source in the repository so redirects remain reviewable and version controlled.
For a moved content item, prefer preserving the existing permalink when practical. Redirects are secondary to URL stability.
404 behavior
The 404 page provides current discovery routes to Writing, PTIR, History, The Loudmouth, and Archive. It explicitly does not restore privacy/DELETE material.
Review cadence
Before changing any existing permalink:
- confirm the current production URL;
- check for internal links;
- identify a canonical replacement;
- add the redirect in the same change;
- validate that no privacy exclusion is crossed.
URL and redirect checks should become part of EI-4.5 automated editorial quality gates.