How to correctly delete a parent page

Let’s address a scenario where a parent page is deleted. This sometimes results in its child pages taking on the deleted parent’s slug, leading to navigation errors and confusion.

👎 Incorrect approach:  A user deletes a page without confirming if it is a parent page that has child pages under it.  This results in the child pages not being assigned a new parent page or having a parent page removed from the child page altogether, thus making it a normal page without a hierarchy.

When a page is removed that is being used as a parent page, it causes the URL of the child pages to reflect the deleted page and the URL structure consisting of the deleted page slug/permalink.

Example child URL after parent deletion: https://domain.com/somepage__trashed/another-page/

👍 Correct approach:  When deleting a page on your site, first confirm that it doesn’t have child pages under it.  You can easily do this from the ‘Pages’ section, located via the main Dashboard.  If there are no pages in a hierarchy under the page to be deleted then it’s free to delete.  If there are child pages under the page, first update the parent page of the child pages or remove the parent page from the child pages entirely.