Have you ever see a website with a URL like this?
example.com/about-us-2
Isn’t that silly? The “-2” doesn’t provide any information, and for those of us who have worked in WordPress, it even says something about how the person’s managing the site. They’ve created a duplicate page and haven’t cleaned it up.
I’ve been reading “Dogfight” by Calvin Trillin. It’s great and inspired me to set a quick WordPress tip for avoiding the “-2” problem to verse. (Last year I wrote a bunch of haikus about web design, so this isn’t the first poetry on the blog, but it is the first poetry with a rhyme scheme.)
When making a new WordPress page
My head fills with obstinate rage
When I look and see
A dash-2 or dash-3
At the end of a new URL.
This thing that makes me go “ugh,”
Is the pesky WordPress post slug!
When it gets doubled
You know you’re in trouble
On the path to web address hell!
But this problem? I know you can fix it!
Find the duplicate page, and then nix it!
But you won’t rid the rash
‘Til you go check the trash
And delete the page there as well.
In case you missed any of that, here are some quick screenshots showing you the problem and solution!
You Make a New Page
“My Awesome Page” gets the slug: “my-awesome-page”[Sometime later…] You make another new page with the same title or slug
If you have an identical slug, WordPress adds “-2” to the URL (e.g. “my-awesome-page-2”). Gross!You delete one of the duplicate pages
(Or you can change the slug.)
Move one of the duplicate pages to the trash.You delete it again in the trash
Delete the page from the trash.