Knowledge article link shows up after the article is retired

[SiddeswaraJ]

Hi Community,

    We've facing an issue where retired articles are still accessible to users if they've previously bookmarked or saved the article link. Could we address this so that once an article is retired, any saved or bookmarked links are also disabled, preventing users from viewing the article details.

Thank you.

[fknell]

Hi,

By design, retired knowledge articles are still accessible via direct links (bookmarks, saved URLs, or email links), even though they no longer appear in search results or knowledge lists for standard users.

ServiceNow’s documentation states that:

- Only administrators and knowledge administrators can view retired articles in lists, but the article record itself remains readable via its URL unless you explicitly restrict it.

- There is no out‑of‑box behavior that automatically disables or redirects old links when an article is retired; those links will continue to work for users who still have permission to see retired content.

To address this, common approaches could be:

1.Use ACLs or a “before query” business rule on kb_knowledge

- Add a condition that blocks non‑admin roles from viewing retired articles (e.g.,  workflow_state = retired ), so bookmarked links return “article not found” for standard users.

2.Set up redirects via article replacement

- When retiring an article, specify a replacement article; ServiceNow can then return a 301 redirect from the old KB number to the new one (if your instance is configured with  glide.knowman.enable_article_replacement_on_retire = true ). For Articles without any replacement a 404 code is returned.

Hope this helps...

[vaishali231]

hey @SiddeswaraJ 

You need to restrict read access when the article is in Retired state.

You can do this using either:

Check1: User Criteria 

Review the article’s Can Read user criteria

Make sure Retired articles don’t have a criteria that still allows end users to read

Check 2: Enforce access using ACL 

Add / update the Knowledge read access so that:

If article state = Retired

Only allow:

Knowledge Admin / Knowledge Manager

Everyone else should get blocked even if they hit the saved URL

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Regards
Vaishali Singh