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What happens to links to a question from another post when the question linked is migrated? Will they be broken? Or will they point to the migrated question?

This post about links to deleted questions say that links to deleted question remain broken. Is it the same case for migrated questions too?

What is the Etiquette on linking to SE questions, to avoid broken links?

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  • I don't know about relative links (I suspect they'd break), but generally links are done in absolute form (via copy-paste from the "share" dialog or address bar), and I can't imagine those would be altered in any way.
    – Matthew Haugen
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:09
  • The obvious exception, of course, was the MSO/MSE split, after which the Community user went through and fixed all the broken links. But that was very deliberate, and obviously different from what you're talking about.
    – Matthew Haugen
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:10
  • Is there a way to find where the question was migrated to and relink it to my question, If I find one?
    – One Face
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:12
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    @CRags I'm not sure I follow you.... are you talking about links to a migrated question or links in a migrated question?
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:28
  • For someone else's question? Nothing robust, that I know of. There's often a link that lingers around on the original site to it, but beyond that, you'd have to check the profile of the user who asked it and hope they had or made an account on the target site. But again, I can't really imagine where this would be an issue.
    – Matthew Haugen
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:28
  • psubsee2003 raises a good point--I (for some weird reason) assumed you meant links in the migrated question, but to makes a lot more sense. My bad. Yes, links to a migrated question should hold, as far as I know. I'm surprised the question hung around for long enough to get linked to, but I don't believe the id is ever reused on the original site, so any links should redirect through.
    – Matthew Haugen
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 7:30
  • Sorry for the ambiguity, the question seemed fine to me till psubsee2003 pointed out. Thanks for the answer, sorry for the delay
    – One Face
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 9:07

1 Answer 1

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For links to a migrated question, they will hold and will not break. When a question is migrated, the original question is soft deleted, just like any other deleted question on the site. As such, it still exists to allow for automatic redirection to the migrated post.

For example, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3018462/ is a question asked on SO back in 2010 and migrated to Super User in the same year. The link to the original SO question still redirects to the migrated question.

Links in a migrated question (and content migrated with the question, like comments or answers) won't be affected except in 2 cases:

  • Magic links in comments will break as described in Issue with magic site links in comments on migrated posts. These can't be fixed since comments can't be edited (normally) so the only option is deleting the comment or living with the broken magic link
  • Relative links probably do not update, although I do not have any specific examples to demonstrate. The relative links will probably remain relative and will probably break since the system does not know where to redirect the user anymore. Given that relative links are extremely rare, there is actually little chance of it happening often enough to make it a concern.
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  • This is exactly what I asked. Not links in a migrated question, but links to a migrated question
    – One Face
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 8:59
  • @CRags that's what i figured, but the other comments and the fact you didn't correct the misunderstanding made me wonder
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 9:02
  • Is the clear now?
    – One Face
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 9:03
  • Was away for a while, sorry
    – One Face
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 9:03
  • Sorry, I thought I accepted the answer. So didn't see it. Thanks for the answer.
    – One Face
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 7:46
  • @psubsee2003, Nice, how did you get this answer?
    – Pacerier
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 16:54

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