Make a plan to redirect traffic
Once the GOV.UK content team updates GOV.UK to say that your service has retired, the majority of users will be directed to the new service.
Some users will still try to access the service at the retired web address.
You should have a plan for redirecting those users to the new service, or telling them that the service that has permanently retired.
Make sure your subdomain continues to work
After your service is retired, you must help users by:
- continuing to use SSL
- serving a redirect from your service to the GOV.UK start page
If your service has been live for less than 6 months, you must do this until a year after your service went live.
If your service has been live for longer than 6 months, you must do this for a year after the time it retired or until the current SSL certificate expires, whichever comes first.
Your GOV.UK start page will be changed to explain that the service is no longer running, and the start button will be removed.
Work in Progress!
This site is a work in progress and any opinions contained here are intended to spark discussion within each discipline's community of practice.
Created: 2023-07-26