permanent deletion – incl. site name?

  • Unknown's avatar
    barbaraadachrac · Member ·

    I need to permanently delete the site I created as a school project. If I follow the instructions, how soon does the deletion take effect? Will the blog URL remain and be traceable? It is important that it too is permanently deleted. Would it be best to first change the name of the blog URL & then delete?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    Deletion is immediate, but you will need to empty the site of content before doing so. Once you delete the site, the site address/URL will still be visible but there will be a notification there along the lines of

    yourusernamesite.wordpress.com is no longer available
    The authors have deleted the site.

    If you don’t want your name permanently associated with the site, you may indeed wish to change the URL before deleting it. Please be cautious when you follow the instructions for changing a site URL because whatever changes you make cannot be undone.
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/changing-blog-address/

    Since you intend to change the URL before permanently deleting the site, please consider using a “throwaway” address that wouldn’t want to be used by someone else. Once deleted, a site URL can never be reused, not by you and not by anyone else.

    Since username accounts cannot be deleted, https://en.support.wordpress.com/deleting-accounts/ depending on whether or not you have other WordPress.com websites under your current username, you can also change your username at the same time you change the URL. Again, this is irreversible.

    Let us know if you need more help or have questions on any of that.

  • Unknown's avatar
    auxclass · Member ·

    Keep in mind that the site will live on in the cache of search engines for some time unless you do battle with each one to have the cache cleaned

    depending on the size of your site – you might consider replacing the existing content in each Post and Page with a simple line like “the contents have been deleted by the author” – that might help search engines clear the cache quicker – if you go this route – remember to delete images from the Media Library

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    Hi @auxclass – great additional info! Thanks.

    In this particular case the original poster’s site is currently marked Private, so hopefully search engines are in the process of dropping the site already.

  • Unknown's avatar
    auxclass · Member ·

    my pleasure –

    if it’s private it is on the way to being a single entry even if someone searches for the domain URL

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