Lost access to a parent page directory

Hi, iFiona, & welcome.

Have you checked to ensure that the ‘services’ page wasn’t accidentally moved to a child position of some other page?

Hi Jackie,

Thanks for your response. I don’t think this has happened, it’s more like the landing page for services, somehow migrated to the tab bar and created a whole new tab. Sadly it leaves the landing page for services with the 404 error message showing. So not cool!

Hi, iFiona. When you go to the permalinks for these pages, what do they say? (go to ‘Pages’ > ‘All Pages’ & select the services & personal coaching & counseling page. There, you’ll se the permalink for the page, which is editable.

What I’m seeing is this:
https://www.e-stranged.com/personal-counseling/
actually takes the visitor to the ‘My Services’ page, so somehow the permalinks got screwed up.

I think if you edit the permalinks on these pages, things should get better again.

Please let us know, won’t you?

Thank you so much for getting back to me – I really appreciate it! I tried changing the permalink and it is now https://www.e-stranged.com/services-3/ but it hasn’t moved the page back under the parent directory ‘Services’ – and there’s still no option under the page attributes -> parent that lets me select this.

I sent off an email to Bluehost as well. What they had to say is:

Typically this sort of problem would be handled by using a redirect. The “services” url is not one that exists, and the personal coaching and counseling url is ” https://www.e-stranged.com/personal-counseling/ ” so what you would need to accomplish that is a plugin that redirects one url to another (and redirects https://www.e-stranged.com/services/ to https://www.e-stranged.com/personal-counseling/ ).

I’ve never heard of a plugin that does this – and it sounds like a lot of work to correct what has to be, I hope, a small error.

I’d love to hear your thoughts /suggestions.

Many thanks again for your reply!

Hi, iFiona. Here’s the problem. When clicking on either the services or personal coaching & counseling links, they both go to the permalink of services3. The https://www.e-stranged.com/personal-counseling/ gives a ‘Page not found’ error. So the solution proposed by BlueHost won’t work, as it appears the personal coaching & counseling page is gone, so there’s nowhere to redirect to.

Can you go to your personal coaching & counseling page & click on revisions? Is there an earlier revision you could restore that page from? WARNING! You’ll need to change the permalink from services3 to something like personal-coaching-and-counseling (note the hyphens), & you should then be able to pick the services page as parent.

If there are no earlier revisions, then my solution would be to delete both the services & personal coaching & counseling pages, then *empty the trash* & create the pages again. You’ll want to create services first so you can make it the parent of personal coaching & counseling. You can copy the content to .rtf or text files on your computer prior to deleting the pages, so all you need do is paste it into the WordPress editor. That will straighten it out. In fact, that’s really what I’d suggest you do–simply copy the content from the pages into 2 separate files on your local machine, move both pages to the trash, empty the trash, then recreate the pages, with the service page being created first.

Is that about as clear as mud or…?

Hi again Jackie — you’re a super star for your reply and patience!

Here’s the thing I did (desperation is setting in!). I got the WordPress redirection plugin — you are right – completely unhelpful. *delete*

I then went into the menus directory and was able to restore the personal coaching and counseling page, now bringing me back to my original dilemma – a new tab called personal coaching and counseling, and a 404 error under services. I feel like I got off lucky as at least I didn’t altogether lose the page.

I definitely don’t want to redirect the services to the personal coaching and counseling header/tab… what I really want to do is move that personal coaching and counseling tab to the page where to 404 error sits and delete the personal coaching and counseling tab that has appeared.

Is this possible?

Hi, iFiona. Ok–so:
* Edit your Personal Coaching & Counseling page by going to ‘Pages > All Pages’ & clicking on it.
* Change the permalink. It’s close to where you type in the title. Please make sure it reads ‘personal counseling’ (without the ‘) or similar.
* Click the ‘Update’ button.

I don’t know what’s occurring precisely, but now both your Services & Personal Coaching & Counseling pages are throwing a 404 error, which suggests to me that, while you changed the page’s content, you didn’t change the permalink. You’ll absolutely need to do that in order to restore the page.

Hi Jackie —

Yep got that. On my end the permalink is https://www.e-stranged.com/personal-coaching-and-counseling/ and that page loads fine without a 404 error on my screen.

404 error is still alive and well on the https://www.e-stranged.com/services/ page however.

Ok, iFiona, we’re making progress. Now please do the same thing you did w/your coaching & counseling page, but this time w/the services page.
* Go to ‘Pages > All Pages’.
* Click the ‘Services’ page link.
* Look at the content, making sure it’s what you want, & restore from an earlier version if needed.
* Change the permalink to services, services3, or something that WordPress will accept, & press the ‘Update’ button. I say that because it may feel you already have pages w/these permalinks.

Once you’ve done that, everything should be back to normal. You’ve got a very interesting niche there. I hope you’re very very successful!

Okay – here’s where I think the problem is. I can’t actually go to the services page as it doesn’t exist. The “children” who once lived under the services page are still there alive and well:

— Group Coaching | Parent Page: Services
Edit | Quick Edit | Trash | View
admin
0 2011/01/26
Published
Select Group Work
— Group Work | Parent Page: Services
admin
0 2014/06/14
Published
Select Healing Retreats
— Healing Retreats | Parent Page: Services
admin
0 2011/01/26
Published
Select Public Speaking and Consultation
— Public Speaking and Consultation | Parent Page: Services

But there is no actual services page that I can adjust the permalink for. I’m sorry I am being so dense – I really appreciate your time and support!

Also – thanks for your kind words about my work / site. I’m pretty passionate about what I do ??

So am I, or I wouldn’t be doing this. I really like helping folks who are having trouble w/their websites. iFiona, have you looked at the content of your “personal coaching & counseling page”? I might be blind, but that looks for all the world to me like a services page. Is that truly your actual personal coaching page?

If that is indeed your coaching & counseling page, then you will need to create a ‘services’ page. If not, then you should seriously change the permalink back to services. Also, what, if anything, do you have in your trash? Might your services page have somehow ended up there?

You are really good at it too! Thank you!

That personal coaching and counseling page – was actually the first services page ?? I’m not sure if I have the actual language right for this … but before this happened, when you clicked on services, the landing page was what is now the personal coaching and counseling page. In other words, that personal coaching and counseling page lived where the 404 error is now. Not sure if that makes it the “parent” – but all the other “children lived underneath it.

It just seems so weird that that page decided to become it’s own tab – sort of like abandoning your children!

I did try updating the permalink of the personal coaching and counseling page to be https://www.e-stranged.com/services/ and that I think!! restored the services page to where it is meant to be but hasn’t gotten rid of the personal coaching and counseling tab.

omg – could I almost be close to fixing this!?

iFiona, what do you have in your trash?

*blush* The Services page :/

I have restored that, updated the content, and it is beautiful and I am so much happier!

Now, can I get rid of the personal coaching and counseling tab and the about tab as well, without crashing my website?

ALL RIGHT! That’s great. Now, here’s what we do.
* Go into your coaching page & change the permalink to coaching-and-counseling or similar.
* Change the services permalink to services.
* Go ahead then & re-edit your coaching page, putting it as a child of services.

Does that get you where you need to be?

Thanks for saying I’m good at website support.