If you move a single-post topic (A) into an existing topic (B) and unlist topic A (which remains in a “will automatically be deleted in 7 days” state), topic A still appears as a “linked topic” on topic B. Is this intended? I expected it not to be listed there either.
Have you tried seeing it the unlisted topic is visible to as a linked topic non-admins?
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Yes it is (this is the situation which surprised me).
I’m on 2.9.0.beta5. Perhaps I should upgrade to beta6 and report back.
If you delete the small action post for the split in Topic A and refresh I think that will remove the back link.
I think Unlisting removes topics from visibility, but still allows direct links to work (as opposed to moving to a private category, for instance).
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I changed it from a relative URL to an absolute URL, so it looks the same but doesn’t create the back link.
Please clarify for me: are you keeping the the unlisted topic around?
I don’t understand why you would keep any URL around, if that moved topic is going to be deleted. Also, why not just delete it? 
It just seems to be how Discourse works.
If you move the post from a one-post topic to another topic, Discourse doesn’t immediately delete the one-post topic. Instead, it closes it and sets it to be deleted within seven days. During that period the post in question appears on the forum twice: once in the soon-to-be-deleted one-post topic, and once where you really want it to be. It adds a note that the post has been merged, and a link to the other topic (this is what causes the back link).
I unlisted the one-post topic (instead of deleting it) so as not to interfere with Discourse’s normal operation. I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t been deleted, or what unintended consequence there might be if I were to delete it.
Do you know why Discourse does what it does? That would help me answer your question.
The 7-day timer is just a default. The feature of deleting the residual topic stubs was added in last year:
You can delete them straight away manually, or edit the delete merged stub topics after days admin setting, depending on what works best for you. 
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I wondered why the stub was created at all but see the answer here:
Is there any way of never having them created at all? The closest to that seems to be automatic deletion after one day.
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I think that’s the only way to do it automatically (setting it to 0 disables the deletion). Though you can manually delete it at any point, including changing the timer length. It can be useful to have a record of the merge though, as it can be disconcerting for a user to think they have a topic, but it’s actually now somewhere else. They should get a notification, but I suppose it would depend on how savvy your users are in general?