A published publication's web address is rebuilt from its title and description every time it is saved. Edit either field and the address moves with it, so the link you shared before the edit stops working. Nothing forwards the old address to the new one, and the old one cannot be brought back.
The publication itself is fine. Its views, likes, comments, bookmarks and any competition entry it is attached to all stay with it. Only the address moved.
The address is made out of your title and your description
When a publication is saved while published, UNI joins the title and the description with the word desc, lowercases the result, turns everything that is not a letter or a number into a hyphen, and cuts it to 40 characters. Forty is a hard limit, which is why so many publication addresses stop mid-word. If another publication already has a close address, a number is added on the end so the two do not collide.
That is why a published publication often has an address reading something like high-rise-in-timber-desc-a-study-of-mass: the part before desc comes from the title, the part after it is the start of the description.
Every save rebuilds it, not only a rename
The rebuild is not triggered by the rename itself. It runs on every save while the publication is published. If you did not touch the title or the description, the rebuild produces exactly the same address and nothing appears to happen. Change a single character in either field and the address changes with it.
So the fields to be careful with are the two that feed the address. Editing the PDF, the cover, the date, the licence or the tags does not move it.
There is no redirect from the old address
The previous address is not kept anywhere. Anyone following the link you shared earlier lands on a page that does not exist, and there is no setting, and no request to support, that restores it. This is worth knowing before you edit something you have already circulated.
What to do
- Settle the title and the description before you share the link. That is the only point at which the address is genuinely yours to decide.
- After any edit to either field, open the publication and copy the address from your browser again. Then update wherever you posted it.
- If a reader tells you the link is dead, send them the current address. Nothing was deleted.
- If a publication is already widely shared, leave the title and description alone. Anything else about it can be edited safely.
Journals work the opposite way
A journal's address is fixed the first time you publish it and never moves again, no matter how often you rename it afterwards. Publications rebuild theirs on every save. The two behave in opposite ways, so the habit you have from one will not carry over to the other.
- Journal: settle the title before you publish, because afterwards every shared link is safe.
- Publication: settle the title and description before you share, and re-copy the link after any edit to either.
See Your journal's web address is fixed the first time you publish for the journal side.