Menus & redirects

Menus control your site’s navigation. Redirects make sure an old link still works after a page moves. Both are under Pages, as tabs, and both are edited directly — there’s no draft step for either, unlike pages.

A menu is a named, ordered list of links — typically your main navigation and one or more footer menus, though your theme decides how many exist and where each is shown. The Menus tab lists every menu; click one to open it and see its items.

  • Items: each has a label (the text visitors see) and a URL. The URL field suggests your own pages as you type, or takes any web address. Add an item, edit or delete one from its actions menu, or drag items to reorder them.
  • Saving: menu changes take effect immediately — there’s no separate publish step.
  • New Menu creates another menu, for your developer to show somewhere in the theme.

Edit Menu changes two things:

  • Name — what the menu is called in the admin. Change it freely.
  • Handle — the short identifier your theme uses to show the menu, such as main or footer. Changing it stops the menu appearing wherever the theme still uses the old handle, so the admin warns you which templates use it first. Change a handle only together with your developer.

Redirects

A redirect sends visitors from an old URL to a new one automatically, so old links — search results, bookmarks, links from other sites — don’t break. The Redirects tab lists every redirect. Each one has:

  • From — the old path.
  • To — the path it now sends visitors to.
  • Note (optional) — a reminder about why this redirect exists.
You rarely need to add one yourself

Moving a page adds a redirect from its old URL automatically, and deleting a page offers to redirect its URL to another page. Add one by hand when there’s no page move involved — for example, retiring an old campaign URL in favour of an existing page. A redirect only takes effect where no real page exists at that URL: a genuine page always wins.