[UX] Add redirect rule for 1.x pages that are now gone, otherwise all pages will yield 404

[chalin]

Requirement

Context:

• Delete most of v1 docs #1050

It would be a better UX if the deleted page URLs were redirected, ideally to an explanation of what happened.

@yurishkuro - how about adding a banner/pageinfo at the top of https://www.jaegertracing.io/docs/1.76/ to explain that v1 reached EOL on Jan 1, 2026, and using that as a redirect target?

[chalin]

@yurishkuro - How fine-grained would you like the redirects to be? I'm asking, because we're hitting 404s atm from the OTel.io page. For example, how should we redirect:

• https://www.jaegertracing.io/docs/1.42/getting-started/

I see three options:

• https://www.jaegertracing.io/docs/1.76/getting-started/
• https://www.jaegertracing.io/docs/latest/getting-started/, which currently is a v2 page
• Just have a catch-all for all 1.x pages that DNE and redirect them to the 1.76 landing page. To me, this is the worst UX

/cc @vitorvasc

[yurishkuro]

I prefer to redirect to v2. Even the remaining 1.76 would eventually go away.

[chalin]

I prefer to redirect to v2. Even the remaining 1.76 would eventually go away.

@yurishkuro, after giving this more thought, I'd like to argue that the most appropriate action for end users is to:

• Keep 1.76 pages indefinitely
• Redirect 1.x pages to the corresponding 1.76 page, assuming it exists, or to the 1.76 landing page otherwise.

Why?

1. URLs are like public APIs. There are lots of URLs to 1.x pages out there (blogs, runbooks, tickets, vendor docs, PDFs, bookmarks including OTel.io blog posts). Simply deleting them is a serious breaking change that just leaves clients confused and unaware of any suggested migration path.

2. By keeping 1.76 pages, we can clearly mark v1 as EOL and funnel users to v2. That is, add a banner to 1.76 pages + links to migration + 2.x equivalents so that users are informed, not surprised.

3. Redirecting 1.x → latest 2.x silently changes semantics. You propose redirecting to 2.x pages, but users following an old link expect 1.x behavior. Landing on 2.x can give wrong flags, configs, or deployment instructions — a correctness bug, not just UX.

4. Keeping 1.76 pages has a very low support burden.

Thoughts?

[yurishkuro]

sounds good

[yurishkuro]

but we need a banner on 1.76 pages, right now they look "normal", like a valid version

[yurishkuro]

on Download page we have a warning

[yurishkuro]

also "1.76 (latest)" is misleading, can we drop "latest"?