Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
How and when to remove or retire content from GOV.UK.
Only managing editors can unpublish or withdraw content from GOV.UK. If your managing editor is not available, contact GDS using the GOV.UK Support form.
Anyone with a Whitehall publisher account can discard drafts of content that have never been published.
Before you start, read the guidance on when to unpublish or withdraw content.
Unpublishing deletes a piece of content from GOV.UK.
To unpublish content:
- Select the ‘Documents’ tab in Whitehall publisher and search for your document.
- Click on the document you want to unpublish.
- Click on the ‘Withdraw or unpublish’ button.
- If you select ‘Unpublish: published in error’ add an ‘Alternative URL’ to avoid creating a ‘404’ error message and write a reason in the ‘Public explanation’ field. Do not redirect the page if it was published too soon and you plan to publish the page again at the same URL.
- If you select ‘Unpublish: consolidated into another GOV.UK page’ you only need to add an ‘Alternative URL’.
You can only redirect to URLs on:
- GOV.UK
- external government sub-domains, for example .judiciary.uk, .nhs.uk, .ukri.org
You can use Markdown to format text you add in the public explanation box.
‘Unpublish: consolidated into another GOV.UK page’ and redirect to an appropriate page if you’re unpublishing content that:
- contains sensitive personal data
- breaches copyright laws
- includes material that users find obscene or defamatory
- includes details of convictions - speak to your legal team to find out when it should be removed
Unpublished content will return to a ‘draft’ state in Whitehall publisher. You cannot discard drafts of unpublished content.
Attachments
If you choose ‘Unpublish: consolidated into another GOV.UK page’ all attachments on the document (such as HTML attachments and PDFs) will automatically redirect to the same place as the unpublished document (the ‘Alternative URL’).
Email updates
Unpublishing a publication, consultation or detailed guide will notify users who have subscribed to email updates about that page.
Withdrawing content means it’s still available at the same URL. You will not be able to create any new versions of the content while it’s withdrawn but you can edit the public explanatory text that appears on the page.
Links to the withdrawn document in the content of other pages will not be automatically removed from other pages.
Withdrawn content will show as ‘withdrawn’ in the ‘state’ field in Whitehall publisher.
Where withdrawn content will appear
A withdrawn document will still appear in Google search results and attachments can still be reached directly from Google. The document will not appear in internal site search results.
If the withdrawn document is featured on your organisation page, it will continue to be listed there until it’s un-featured.
A withdrawn document will not be visible in:
- document collections it is part of
- the list of announcements on a person’s profile page
- specialist browse
- govdelivery notifications
If the document has non-HTML attachments, you first need to:
- Select the ‘Documents’ tab in Whitehall publisher then find and click on your document.
- Create a new version of the document to edit.
- In the ‘Attachments’ tab, delete any attachments from the document (you’ll need to edit them, so download them first if you need to).
- Edit each attachment to add a statement or watermark - for example ‘This publication was withdrawn on 1 January 2020’ - and add ‘[Withdrawn]’ to the start of file titles when you save them.
- Re-upload the attachments to the document. When filling in the attachment details, put ‘[Withdrawn]’ at the start of the title.
- Republish the document. Under the ‘Do users have to know the content has changed?’ heading, select ‘No - it’s a minor edit that does not change the meaning’ so that users signed up to email alerts are not notified at this stage.
You do not need to add a ‘withdrawn’ message to HTML attachments or delete and reupload them. Whitehall Publisher does it automatically when you withdraw a document.
To withdraw the document:
- Select the ‘Documents’ tab in Whitehall publisher then find and click on your document.
- Click on the ‘Withdraw or unpublish’ button - it’s the red button above the ‘check for broken links’ box.
- Select ‘Withdraw: no longer current government policy/activity’.
- Write a reason in the ‘Public explanation’ field explaining why you’re withdrawing the document. You can include Markdown and provide users with a link to a new page or document.
Here are some examples of what you can put in the ‘Public explanation’ field.
If a scheme, programme or fund closes
“You cannot apply for this [scheme, programme, fund] anymore. It has been replaced by [name and link to scheme].”
If it’s out of date content
If there’s guidance that’s related to the page being withdrawn: “This page has been withdrawn because it’s out of date. You can read about [X or Y] at [name and link to new guidance]”.
If there’s a direct replacement at a new URL: “This page has been replaced by a newer version. Go to: [link]”.
If it’s an old news story or press release
“This news article has been withdrawn because it’s over [x] years old.”
There’s more guidance on withdrawing old content.
Only withdraw pages that are no longer relevant. Examples of items that should not be withdrawn are:
- guidance that’s still useful about things people can still do (consider retagging this to the new organisation if there is one)
- transparency data
- freedom of information responses
Only managing editors can ‘unwithdraw’ content, for example if a content item was withdrawn by mistake or they need to fix an error in the content.
Find the document in Whitehall publisher and select ‘Unwithdraw’. You do not need to republish the document.
If the document has any non-HTML attachments you’ll need to re-upload them, even if ‘withdrawn’ versions were not uploaded when the content was withdrawn. HTML attachments will automatically appear with the ‘withdrawn’ message removed.
If you’re making a change, you must withdraw the content again afterwards. This will not email subscribers or give any notification to users. You can either reuse a previous withdrawal date and public explanation, or use a new public explanation.
You should only reuse a previous withdrawal date and public explanation if you have:
- updated file attachments to mark them ‘withdrawn’
- made a minor edit, for example fixing a broken link
- fixed an error or mistake in the content which existed when it was originally withdrawn
Find out when you can edit withdrawn content in the guidance on when to unpublish or withdraw content.
URLs are automatically created from the page title when you publish the page. A URL can be changed by a GDS developer, but this will only be done in exceptional circumstances.
If there’s a mistake (for example, a typo) in the URL, or the URL no longer matches the content of the document, you can update it by:
-
Creating a new document with the desired title (and URL) and copying the content from the current page into this document.
-
Publishing the new document.
-
Asking a managing editor to unpublish the page with the incorrect URL and set up a redirect to the new page.
This will mean the change notes history (shown under ‘Show all updates’) is lost from the original page. If you need to keep this, ask the GDS content team to change the URL instead.