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I want to merge two accounts of mine but I worry about incoming links: what happens to them? Will I break the web?

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Yes, you will. I just merged a recent and more active account into an older mostly inactive one. Now the first link just gives a 404.

I don't know whether the absence of redirects is intentional or just a missing feature. Looks like the merged account is entirely deleted.

Links won't break to things which don't change their IDs, though. For example a tag filter ID/URL doesn't depend on the account ID.

When merging accounts, you may want to try to make sure an account with many incoming links is not deleted. I don't know if you can choose, though: perhaps you have to ask merge from the account you want to delete, or perhaps the oldest account is always preserved no matter what.

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  • You can ask which to merge. Why is this Community Wiki?
    – Tim
    May 3, 2015 at 21:55
  • @Tim, thanks. How? It's CW because this answer is intended to collect facts, but I wasn't done collecting all facts so I want it to be mercilessly edited. :)
    – Nemo
    May 3, 2015 at 21:58
  • Fair enough. In the contact email I believe you specify which to merge :)
    – Tim
    May 3, 2015 at 21:59
  • @Tim, I had no such option in the email, which was identical to both accounts: «Hello, We received your request to merge the following Stack Overflow accounts: stackoverflow.com/users/1333493/nemo stackoverflow.com/users/4145951/nemo Before we can merge, we need to confirm that you own both of these accounts. To confirm ownership of Nemo, click the link below:» I think there was no such option in the form either, but I wouldn't swear it.
    – Nemo
    May 3, 2015 at 22:02

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