How Create Link to Hidden Navigation Page

[MitchellZ]

I wanted to create a page on my website for my novel where there is an excerpt of the book. I wanted the excerpt to be accessible to those who have a link that I send them.

I clicked the Hide Navigation box on creating the page, then I pulled a text box onto the page in Build, inserted a link to a file which I updated.

My understanding was that the link would become live when I hit Publish. But after I published, I have no idea what the link is to the page or how to find it.  Help!  Thanks.

[Adam7 · Accepted solution]

The URL of the hidden page follows a formatting where if the page title is "This is the new page" then the URL of the page would be:

mysite.com/this-is-the-new-page.html

[MitchellZ]

Thanks so much!  That did it.

[ttlg]

OK Adam ... its a year later and the suggestion for using the page name as the URL simply doesn't work.

I have a Square Weebly store.  I add an item, say, R199 Wallet Brown.  I mark it hidden.

Discussions imply I would give out https://mywebsite.com/r199-wallet-brown.html as the URL.

That 404s

I look at the URLs for item on my site and they are nowhere related to this simplistic (and laudable) method.  No, instead of the above my item is 

https://www.mysite.com/product/r199-wallet-brown/56?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=true

If I give out

https://www.mysite.com/product/r199-wallet-brown/
or
https://www.mysite.com/product/r199-wallet-brown.html

another 404.

It is impossible without saving live, copying then rehiding the item to get a URL that works.

What is /56 and why are other items different numbers? Why would Weebly need anything after the ? in order to resolve to a page, when according to you and others the page URL is the product name with dashes for spaces, and nothing more?

Finally, why the heck isn't there, at an absolute minimum, (a) the URL in copyably text under the HIDDEN button so we can get the URL immediately, and (b) why does the save and view option barf with 'try again' when the page is hidden, if the intent is to view the result of adding a new page, hidden, unavailable or not? IOW, the visibility setting of a page should not interfere with a page author's ability to view a new page without going through hoops.And if it can't be done, at least disable the save view option.

So, if it is not you who do we have to scream/plead/beg/bribe to get such simplicity implelented? And implemented quickly as I see complaints on this going back to 2016.

Randy
Web dude for ttlgcreations

[Adam7]

Thanks for posting about it, @ttlgcreations. Items are different than regular pages and they do have a unique URL that you won't be able to deduce just from the name of the item. I agree with you that having something within the item page giving your the URL would be much better! Hopefully that's something we can add.

[CCCAwebsite]

Your solution is what I have been using to send a link to a concealed page. However, for some reason today it's not working. I keep getting a 404 error.

The page is titled: Test Menu (hidden in navigation bar)

The website page is mywebsite.org/test-menu.html is what I am using. What have I done wrong?

Thank you.

[Adam7]

Hi, @CCCAwebsite.

After adding that page, did you publish your site again?

[christinefl]

I need to link to a hidden page from an email or FB ad/post. For example, linking to a landing page or thank you page from a fb post and both are hidden from navitation. However, I can't link it to a published site since it is not in the navigation.  Thank you! Chris

[Adam7]

What is the name of your hidden page, @christinefl? The page should show up as an option for text/button links, and if you just want the URL they follow a standard format. For example, if your site is mysite.com and your page is called "this is my page", then the URL of the page would be "https://www.mysite.com/this-is-my-page.html".

[christinefl]

Thank you Adam for the quick reply! I actually backed into that solution when another post suggested I unhide the page, hit Publish, copy its URL on the published site and then hide it again. 🙂 

Chris

[Adam7]

That's definitely an easy way to get the URL! 

[callemone]

Easy, but completely inappropriate for a live website with active visitors while also being updated. I have several pages that need to be hyperlinked in specific parts of my page, but not that main navigation, and the titles are complicated enough that I cannot reliably use the method listed here with dashes to get my hyperlinks. The hyperlink for each page really should be available, and if I hit publish from a specific page, I'd really love to navigate directly to THAT page, not the homepage each time.

[ermerm]

In each page's SEO settings, it shows the extension link to get to the individual page. You can also change the extension to whatever you want.