Wikipedia:Redirect
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This page is a how-to guideline for Wikipedia, reflecting how authors of this encyclopedia address certain issues. This guideline is intended to help you improve Wikipedia content. Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes. |
- For general info and coordination guidelines for all Wikimedia projects, on creating redirects see Help:Redirect.
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[edit] How to make a redirect (redirect command)
To redirect a page A to a different page B (also called target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of redirecting page (1).
#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]
For example, to redirect the Cambridge University page ( redirecting page ) to the University of Cambridge page (target page), edit the Cambridge University page and enter:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]]
You can also redirect to page sections within an article. See Meta:Help:Redirect#A redirect to an anchor:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge#History]]
Redirects to anchors should be used sparingly as the user no longer sees the helpful "(redirected from... )" text at the top of the page. However, redirecting to a heading with the same name as the redirecting page seems rather safe, try for example "Argument from contingency". If the section name changes, the redirect will simply lead to the top of the target article.
[edit] Undesirable redirects
Don't make double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they don't work, they create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing.
Double redirects are usually created after a move when old redirects are left unchanged and pointing towards an old name.
Another type of undesirable redirect is a self-redirect: an article that redirects to itself through a redirect.
[edit] Creating new redirects
You can create a new page in order to make a redirect.
Only the redirect line will be displayed when you save the page.
To go back and edit your redirect after it's working, add ?redirect=no to the end of the URL for your redirect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no
To add a reason, select one of the tags from the Tag column below and add it one space after and on the same line as #REDIRECT [[Wherever]]. For example, on the redirect page University of cambridge,
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]] {{R from other capitalisation}}
That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below. Note that there must be a space between the end of the redirect code and the template code for this to work properly.
Redirects take effect immediately after saving a page. You may need to clear your cache in order to see these changes.
[edit] Categories for redirect pages
Redirects should not normally contain categories that would fit on the target page because it can result in duplicate listings of the same page within a category. Relevant categories should be moved to the main page where the redirect is pointing.
[edit] What do we use redirects for?
- Compare the more complete template list in the guideline sub-page: Wikipedia:Template_messages/Redirect_pages and the notations in the corresponding category.
| Reason | Usage notes, and text that will be shown | Tag / Category to find articles so tagged |
|---|---|---|
| Abbreviations |
This is a redirect from a title with an abbreviation. For more information, follow the category link. |
{{R from abbreviation}} |
Too short for own article List entry or Section |
Category:Redirects to list entries
This is a redirect to a "list of minor entities"-type article which is a collection of brief descriptions for subjects not notable enough to have separate articles. When List is more sectionlike in organization, such as list of fictional characters in a fictional universe. |
R to list entry R to section |
| Misspellings |
This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error. The correct spelling is given by the target of the redirect. Pages using this link should be updated to link directly to the redirect target, without using a piped link that hides the correct details. For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R from misspelling}} |
| Other spellings, other punctuation |
This is a redirect from a title with a different spelling. Pages using this link may be updated to link directly to the target page. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason. For more information, follow the link to Category:Redirects from alternative spellings or see this reference page.
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{{R from alternative spelling}} |
| Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive |
This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation, and can help writing, searching, and international language issues. Apply one of the below templates to redirects created for this purpose. Other variants should use one of the other redirect templates such as from alternative spelling or from alternative name. Pages linking to any of these redirects may be updated to link directly to the target page. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason. For more information, follow the category link Category:Redirects from other capitalisations. Adding a redirect for mixed-capitalisation article titles (e.g., Isle of Wight) allows going to these articles to be case-insensitive. For example, without the redirect Isle of wight going to "Isle Of wight" or any capitalisation other than exactly 'Isle of Wight' would not find the article Isle of Wight. Why: Articles whose titles contain mixed-capitalisation words (not all initial caps, or not all lower case except the first word) are found only via an exact case match. (Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.) Note: Related redirects are needed only if the article title has two or more words and words following the first have different capitalisations. They are not needed, for example, for proper names which are all initial caps. Examples:
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{{R from other capitalisation}} |
| Other names, pseudonyms, nicknames, and synonyms | This is a redirect from a title that is another name, a pseudonym, a nickname, or a synonym. It leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for common names and can help writing. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason.
For more information, see this reference page and the Category: Redirects from alternative names.
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{{R from alternative name}} |
| Scientific names |
This is a redirect from the binomial nomenclature to the common name.
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{{R from scientific name}} |
| Scientific names |
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{{R to scientific name}} |
| Other languages |
This is a redirect from a title in a language other than English. It leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for titles in other languages and can help writing. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason. For more information, follow the category link. |
{{R from alternative language}} |
| Accents |
This is a redirect from a title in basic ASCII to the formal article title, with differences that are not diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, etc.) Use this redirect link (without piping) when the page concerns language translation or English language equivalents. Other pages using this link should be updated to replace text with the redirect target (again, without piping). For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R from ASCII}} |
| Plurals |
This is a redirect from a plural word to the singular equivalent. This redirect link is used for convenience, usually for plurals that do not follow simple conventions. In many cases, it is preferable to add the plural directly after the link (that is, [[link]]s). However, do not replace these redirected links with a simpler link unless the page is updated for another reason. For more information, follow the category link.
Note that [[greenhouse gas]]es shows up as greenhouse gases, so it is not usually necessary to redirect plurals. However third-party websites started adding automatic links to Wikipedia from their topics (see, e.g., [1]). Many of them follow the opposite naming convention, i.e., topics are named in plural, and the link to Wikipedia may land into an empty page, if there is no redirect. |
{{R from plural}} |
| Related words |
This is a redirect from a related word. Related words in an article are good candidates for Wiktionary links. Redirects from related words are not properly redirects from alternate spellings of the same word. But at the same time, they are also different from redirects from a subtopic, since the related word is unlikely to warrant a full subtopic in the target page. For more information, follow the category link. |
{{R from related word}} |
| Sub-topics or closely related topics that should be explained within the text |
This is a redirect from a title for a topic far more detailed than what is currently provided on the target page, or section of that page, hence something which can and should be expanded. When the target page becomes too large, this redirect may be replaced with an article carved out of the target page. See also {{R to section}}, and when appropriate, use both together, and perhaps add a stub template or two to the redirect page as well. Do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page. For more information, see the auto-category: Category:Redirects with possibilities.
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{{R with possibilities}} |
| Facilitate disambiguation |
This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is used by links that should always point to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R to disambiguation page}} |
| To track statements that date quickly |
This redirect page affects an "as of ..." link. All redirects should use capitalized month names. The primary purpose of linking to this redirect is to keep track (using the "Whatlinkshere" feature) of information that was current in the year when the link to this redirect was created, but may need updating later. For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R for as of}} |
| To redirect to decade article |
This is a redirect from a year to the decade article. Years from 1700 BC to 500 BC should redirect to the relevant decade. Do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page. For more information, follow the category link. |
{{R to decade}} |
| To redirect from a shortcut |
This is a redirect from a Wikipedia shortcut. Shortcuts are generally reserved for Wikipedia project reference pages. For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R from shortcut}} |
| Oldstyle CamelCase links |
This is a redirect from a CamelCase title. In the initial versions of Wikipedia, all links had to be CamelCase. They are kept to keep edit history and to avoid breaking links that may have been made externally. For more information, follow the category link. |
{{R from CamelCase}} |
| links autogenerated from EXIF information |
This is a redirect of a wikilink created from JPEG EXIF information (i.e. the "metadata" section on some image description pages). Since MediaWiki offers no control over the link target of these autogenerated wikilinks, redirects like this are created to make the wikilinks useful. WARNING: It might appear that no pages link to this redirect. This is because the EXIF links don't show up in these listings. This redirect is most probably not orphaned! See also: Category:Redirects
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{{R from EXIF}} |
| From school microstub to merge location |
This is a redirect from a school article that had very little information. The information from this article has been merged into an appropriate location or school district page. For more information, follow the category link.
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{{R from school}} |
- Avoiding broken links (see below)
- Minor but notable topics
Sub-topic or supra-topic redirects (redirect with possibilities) are often temporary, eventually being replaced by fully fledged articles on the sub-topic in question. Be conservative when creating sub-topic redirects — they can sometimes be counter-productive, because they disguise the absence of a proper article from editors. Sub-topic redirects should only be used where the main article has a section or item on the sub-topic. For example, denial of service has a section on distributed denial of service. Sub-topics should be boldfaced on their first appearance in the section, to indicate that they are in fact alternate titles or sub-titles.
In accordance with wikipedia:naming conventions (precision) it's best to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa.
Some editors prefer to avoid redirects and link directly to the target article, as it is reported[citation needed] that redirects lower search engine rankings.
See also: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages which contains a somewhat longer list of available redirect templates
[edit] Renamings and merges
We try to avoid broken links because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of Wikipedia, or we merge two duplicate articles, we always leave redirects in the old location to point to the new location. Search engines and visitors will probably have linked to that page at that url. If the page is deleted, potential new visitors from search engines will be greeted with an edit window. The same is true for anyone who previously bookmarked that page, and so on.
On a small scale, this applies to cases where we had duplicate articles on some subject, or lots of twisty little stubs on different aspects of the same overall subject. On a larger scale, we've had a few fairly major reorganisations:
- Moving away from CamelCase article names
- Moving away from having homepages in the article namespace (see User:Tim Starling/Redirects from : to User: for a partial list)
- Moving away from using subpages in the article namespace
[edit] When should we delete a redirect?
To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it on redirects for discussion. See deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion.
Listing isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points: see How do I change a redirect? for instructions on how to do this. If you want to swap a redirect and an article, but are not able to move the article to the location of the redirect please use Wikipedia:Requested moves to request help from an admin in doing that.
The major reasons why deletion of redirects is harmful are:
- a redirect may contain nontrivial edit history;
- if a redirect is reasonably old, then it is quite possible that its deletion will break links in old, historical versions of some other articles — such an event is very difficult to envision and even detect.
Therefore consider the deletion only of either really harmful redirects or of very recent ones.
You might want to delete a redirect if one or more of the following conditions is met (but note also the exceptions listed below this list):
- The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine. (see m:Redirects in search results — proposed software changes for proposals to lessen this impact)
- The redirect might cause confusion. For example, if "Adam B. Smith" was redirected to "Andrew B. Smith", because Andrew was accidentally called Adam in one source, this could cause confusion with the article on Adam Smith, so it should be deleted.
- The redirect is offensive, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article.
- The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting [[Pink elephants painting daisies]] to love.
- It is a cross-space redirect out of article space, such as one pointing into the User or Wikipedia namespace. The major exceptions to this rule are the "WP:" shortcut redirects (like WP:RFD), which technically are in the main article space but in practice form their own "pseudo-namespace". All "articles" beginning with "WP:" are in fact redirects.
- If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist or itself, it can be deleted immediately, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first.
However, avoid deleting such redirects if:
- They have a potentially useful page history. If the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.
- They would aid accidental linking and make the creation of duplicate articles less likely, whether by redirecting a plural to a singular, by redirecting a frequent misspelling to a correct spelling, by redirecting a misnomer to a correct term, by redirecting to a synonym, etc. In other words, redirects with no incoming links are not candidates for deletion on those grounds because they are of benefit to the browsing user. Some extra vigilance by editors will be required to minimize the occurrence of those frequent misspellings in the article texts because the linkified misspellings will not appear as broken links.
- They aid searches on certain terms.
- You risk breaking external or internal links by deleting the redirect. Old CamelCase links and old subpage links should be left alone in case there are any existing external links pointing to them.
- Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.
- The redirect is to a plural form or to a singular form.
For example, redirecting Dubya to George W. Bush might be considered offensive, but the redirect aids accidental linking, makes the creation of duplicate articles less likely, and is useful to some people, so it should not be deleted.
[edit] What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects?
We follow the "principle of least astonishment" — after following a redirect, the reader's first question is likely to be: "hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?". Make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place.
Normally, we try to make sure that all "inbound redirects" are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article. For example:
- Longships were boats used by the Vikings...
- longship, redirect from viking ship
- Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was ... The broadest collection of his works is at on display at the Munch Museum at...
- Edvard Munch, redirect from Munch Museum
Don't cause a secondary redirect. They don't work like a primary redirect; same with tertiary redirects.
[edit] Self-links, duplicate links
Avoid self-links, including self-links through redirects ("loop links"). Also, avoid having two links that go to the same place. These can confuse readers, and cause them to unnecessarily load the same page twice.
[edit] Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken
Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the link so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly — for instance, if the link is to a misspelling, or other unprintworthy redirects, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading — there is no need to edit the link. The link may be deliberate, may consolidate related information in one place, or may indicate possible future articles.
In particular, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]]. That is, there should be no need to replace a redirect with a piped link to the target if the description is exactly the same as the redirect title.
Some editors have the mistaken impression that fixing redirected links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. Because editing a page uses much more resources than following a redirect, the opposite is true. It is inadvisable to worry about performance anyway.
One exception where it is preferable to fix redirected links is in series templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles (e.g. {{USPresidents}} on George W. Bush). In this case, when the template is placed on an article, and contains a direct link to that article (not a redirect), the direct link will display in bold (and not as a link), making it easier to navigate through a series of articles using the template.
[edit] Template redirects
A template T2 can be redirected to another template T1. This creates an alias (T2 is an alias for T1). The alias name T2 can be used instead of the "real" template T1.
Aliases for templates can cause confusion and make migrations of template calls more complicated. For example, assume calls to T1 are to be changed ("migrated") to some new template TN1. To catch all calls, articles must be searched for {{T1}} and all aliases of T1 (T2 in this case).
[edit] See also
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect
- Wikipedia:Soft redirect
- Wikipedia:How to edit a page
- Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page
- Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
- Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities
- User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects-project
- Wikipedia:List of interwiki redirects
- Wikipedia:Double redirects (maintenance list for items to be fixed; and instructions after moving a page)
- Wikipedia:Redirects to be made
- Wikipedia:Disambiguation
Categories: Wikipedia how-to | Redirects from abbreviation | Redirects to list entries | Redirects from misspellings | Unprintworthy redirects | Redirects from alternative spellings | Redirects from other capitalisations | Redirects from alternative names | Redirects from scientific names | Printworthy redirects | Redirects to scientific names | Redirects from alternative languages | Redirects from titles with ASCII | Redirects from plurals | Redirects from related words | Redirects with possibilities | Redirects to disambiguation pages | Redirects from "As of" | Redirects to decade | Redirects from CamelCase | Redirects from EXIF information | Redirects from school articles | Redirects | Wikipedia features
