Redirects

Offline MediaWiki Code Editor

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Redirects

A redirect is a page which automatically sends visitors to another page, usually an article or section of an article. For example, if you type "UK" in the search box or click on the wikilink UK, you will be taken to the article United Kingdom with a note at the top of the page: "(Redirected from UK)". This is because the page UK contains special wikitext which defines it as a redirect page and indicates the target article. It is also possible to redirect to a specific section of the target page, using more advanced syntax.

Redirect pages can contain other content below the redirect, such as redirect category templates, and category links (which provide a way to list article sections in categories).

Redirects are used to help people arrive more quickly at the page they want to read; this page contains guidance on how to use them properly.

Reasons for creating redirects

· Alternative names redirect to the most appropriate article title (for example, Edison Arantes do Nascimento redirects to Pelé).

· Plurals (for example, Greenhouse gases redirects to Greenhouse gas).

· Closely related words (for example, Symbiont redirects to Symbiosis).

· Adjectives or adverbs point to noun forms (e.g., Treasonous redirects to Treason)

· Less specific forms of names, for which the article subject is still the primary topic. For example, Einstein redirects to Albert Einstein, whereas Johnson is a disambiguation page rather than a redirect, since no Johnson is regarded as the primary topic for that name.

· More specific forms of names (for example, Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union redirects to Articles of Confederation).

· Abbreviations and initialisms (for example, DSM-IV redirects to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). But often an abbreviation will have multiple meanings, none of which is a primary topic—in that case a disambiguation page should be created rather than a redirect.

· Alternative spellings or punctuation. For example, Colour redirects to Color, and Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera.

· Punctuation issues—titles containing dashes should have redirects using hyphens.

· Representations using ASCII characters, that is, common transliterations (for example, Pele also redirects to Pelé while Kurt Goedel and Kurt Godel redirect to Kurt Gödel).

· Likely misspellings (for example, Condoleeza Rice redirects to Condoleezza Rice).

· Likely alternative capitalizations (for example, Natural Selection redirects to Natural selection). This is not necessary for user searches made via Wikipedia's search engine, but may aid linking from other articles and external sites, as well as direct URL entry.

· To comply with the maintenance of nontrivial edit history, pursuant to Wikipedia:Merging#PROMERGE for copyright licensing requirements.

· Sub-topics or other topics which are described or listed within a wider article. (Such redirects are often targeted to a particular section of the article.)

· Redirects to disambiguation pages that do not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title (for example, Durham (disambiguation) redirects to Durham). These help maintenance by allowing deliberate links to disambiguation pages to be distinguished from links that need to be disambiguated.

· Shortcuts (for example, Wikipedia:V redirects to Wikipedia:Verifiability). This is commonly done in project space, but not in article space.

· Old-style CamelCase links (if already in existence) (AnnaKournikova redirects to Anna Kournikova).

· Links auto-generated from Exchangeable image file format information (Adobe Photoshop CS Windows redirects to Adobe Photoshop).

· Finding what links to a section, when links are made to the redirect rather than the section.

· There are redirect templates to explain the reason for a redirect.

Note that redirects to other Wikimedia projects, other websites, or special pages do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a {{soft redirect}} template. Soft redirects are also used in category space (using the {{category redirect}} template).

How to make a redirect

To create a basic redirect, type #REDIRECT [[target page name here]] as the only text on the page. For instance, if you were redirecting from "UK" to "United Kingdom", this would be the entire body of the "UK" page:

#REDIRECT [[United Kingdom]]

Redirects can also be automatically created when you move (rename) an existing page.

Targeted redirects

It is also possible to create a targeted redirect, i.e. a redirect to a particular point on the target page—either a section header or an anchor. The text given in the link on a targeted redirect page must exactly match the target section heading or anchor text, including capitalization and punctuation.

It is often helpful to leave a hidden comment in the target text, to inform other editors that a section title is linked, so that if the title is altered, the redirect can be changed. For example:

==Vaccine overload==

To create a redirect to a point on the page other than a section heading, create an explicit target anchor in the page, e.g., by using the {{anchor}} template. Alternative anchors for section headings are ideally placed directly in front of the text of the heading:

=={{Anchor|anchor name}}Section title==).

The anchor text will not be visible, but it will serve as a permanent marker of that place on the page. Editors should generally not remove or alter such anchors without checking all incoming links and redirects.

#REDIRECT [[target page name here#Section header or Anchor]]

Warning

· Don't give an anchor the same name as a section heading – this creates invalid code, as anchor names must be unique.

· Be careful with anchor capitalization – section redirects are case-sensitive in standards-compliant browsers.

Double redirects

The software will not follow chains of more than one redirect – this is called a double redirect. A redirect should not be left pointing to another redirect page.

Double redirects often arise after a page is moved (renamed) – after moving a page, check whether there are any redirects to the old title (using the link on the move result page, or using "What links here"), and change them to redirect straight to the new title. (Double redirects are usually fixed by a bot after some time.)

Linking to a redirect

You can link to a redirect page just as you can link to an article page by placing the redirect page name within a set of double brackets, such as:

[[Redirect page name]]

replacing Redirect page name with the name of the redirect page to link.

To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use: {{No redirect|Redirect page name}} replacing Redirect page name with the name of the redirect page to link. Clicking on a no-redirect link will send the reader to the redirect page rather than the final redirect destination.

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