Wikipedia:Redirect

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This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts: WP:R WP:RDR WP:REDIRECT

This page in a nutshell: A redirect is an aid to navigation and searching by linking one title to another. For instance Music Of Germany should be redirected to the correct Music of Germany, and similarly a variation such as German music should redirect to the article at Music of Germany. A redirect points from a title to an article, not to another redirect; try to avoid double redirects.

A redirect is a Wikipedia page starting with:

#REDIRECT [[Article]]

where Article is the target page. A redirect is not an article, but it sends the reader to an article, usually from an alternative title.

For example, if you type "UK" in the search box, or if you make a wikilink: UK, you will be taken to the article United Kingdom, with a note at the top of the page: "(Redirected from UK)". The article UK contains no content other than the one line of code shown above, as you can see here.

[edit] How to make a redirect (redirect command)

To redirect page A (the redirecting page) to a different page B (the target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of the redirecting page.

#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]]

In addition to checking your spelling, make sure you capitalize the article name exactly like the main article is capitalized. Alternative capitalizations sometimes cause halts in redirects.

You can and should also give a reason for a redirect:

#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]]{{R from alternative name}}

See below for an incomplete list of possible reasons.

[edit] Redirects to page sections

You can also redirect to page sections within an article. See Meta:Help:Redirect#A redirect to an anchor:

#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge#History]]{{R from alternative name}}{{R to section}}

Consider that when the target page is displayed, it is likely that the top of the page will not be shown, so the user may not see the helpful "(redirected from... )" text unless they know to scroll back to the top. This is less likely to cause confusion if the redirect is to a heading with the same name as the redirect; see for example "Argument from contingency".

One option for documenting a redirect to a section heading is to leave a comment using <!-- ... ---> to remind others that the title is linked, so that if the title is altered, the redirect can be changed. For example:

 ==Evolutionary implications== <!-- This section is linked from redirect "[[Richard Dawkins]]" --> 

A redirect to a non-existent section – perhaps due to a misspelling or name change – will simply lead to the top of the target article.

A more resilient approach is to insert an {{Anchor}} inside the heading, copying the heading's current title as a parameter to the template; then, even if the heading is renamed, its original anchor is preserved and the existing anchor links will still work. {{Anchor}} will take multiple parameters, so several names and variations can be accommodated. Documenting terms expected in the subsection without confusing the readers is encouraged. The above example becomes:

==Evolutionary implications {{Anchor|Evolutionary implications}}==

This method however has an unwanted side effect: the {{Anchor|parameters}} will appear in section edit summaries:

/* Some section title {{Anchor|parameters}} */ the user summary

The following markup avoids this side effect:

==Evolutionary implications ==
{{Anchor|Evolutionary implications}}

or this real example, which does have a convenient nearby section title:

==Table of AWG wire sizes==
{{Anchor|Table of AWG wire sizes}} <!-- redirect target and direct link from other articles -->

{{Anchor|any text for an anchor link}} will also work in the body text of a long section where one might not want a section or sub-section title, such as above a table referenced by another article.

[edit] Undesirable redirects

[edit] Double redirects

A double redirect is a title that redirects to another redirect. Double redirects are usually created after a move when old redirects are left unchanged and pointing toward an old name. This is one reason good editors check links and observe if the link traversed was a redirect or direct path.

Avoid making double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they do not work (to prevent endless looping, a redirect will not "pass through" more than one entry).

If you move or rename a page, it is best to click on "What links here" to see if any redirects exist, and to change them to redirect straight to the new title.

[edit] Self-redirect

A self-redirect is a title that redirects straight to the page on which the link is found. This may occur if a redirect is created from a red link on the page, or if the title once was an article of its own but was merged. This is particularly common in a series of new inter-related topics moving together from the stub stage. Many editors despise red links, even temporarily in new topics. The team working the articles may well intend to expand such redirects to full articles, so the cyclical links are place holders; in such cases, checking the page histories should make it clear whether to make a corrective edit.

An exception is a redirect to a section within the article, especially in a long article that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen. Essentially, this is comparable to a "see above" or "see below," accomplished by wikilinking [[#Heading]] (no article name, just the heading name prefixed by #).

[edit] Nonfunctional redirects

Redirects to other Wikimedia projects, other websites, or special pages do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a soft redirect template.

[edit] Shortcuts within article space

While redirects to project pages or sections thereof for the purpose of creating a shortcut are accepted, the same is not usually desired for mainspace articles, though exceptions exist.

Redirects from well-recognized abbreviations and acronyms to an article's title are acceptable (for example, UCLA redirects to University of California, Los Angeles). When creating such a redirect, try to learn about other titles that might use that same abbreviation. It may be more appropriate for the abbreviation or acronym to serve as a disambiguation page, or else the template {{redirect|abbreviation}} shall be placed at the top of the page for which that abbreviation is most recognized, pointing to a disambiguation page for all other uses of the abbreviation.

[edit] Abusive redirects

[edit] Redirect vandalism

Vandals may abuse redirects. Usually, the vandals attempt to shock readers by redirecting them to pages with offensive content. They may also redirect random pages to other random pages to confuse readers.

[edit] Promotional redirects

Spammers may redirect random pages to their spam page to promote their product.

[edit] Attack redirects

Others are meant to attack people or promote propaganda by creating false, negative, or abusive redirects to articles.

[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 is working, add ?redirect=no to the end of the URL for your redirect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no

If you wish to add a reason, select one of the tags from the Tag column below and add it on the same line as #REDIRECT [[Wherever]], enclosed in double braces. 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.

Redirects take effect immediately after saving a page. You may need to clear your cache to see these changes.

[edit] Suppressing redirects

When a page is moved, a redirect is automatically left behind. Administrators have the ability to suppress the redirect, i.e., to prevent it being created, by unchecking the box labelled "Leave a redirect behind." This is useful to save time when performing moves for which a redirect is inappropriate, such as reverting page move vandalism.

However, in general, unless there is a good reason (such as vandalism) to suppress the redirect, it is best to leave it behind, as a useful entry in the history. This leaves a trail to help readers find the old article, in case a new article is created at its previous location.

[edit] Redirect or rename?

If there is an article named, say, University of Oxford, and you discover that the title "Oxford University", although a reasonable alternative designation and search term for the same university, is still a red link, you can create a page with that title as a new redirect page, redirecting to the page University of Oxford. An alternative is instead to rename the University of Oxford page to "Oxford University". This is also called a "page move"; see Help:Moving a page for more detail. The old page becomes a redirect to the new page.

The following table summarizes this schematically, using arrows to indicate who redirects to whom:

Old situation:		Oxford University		University of Oxford
New redirect:		Oxford University	→	University of Oxford
Rename/move:		Oxford University	←	University of Oxford

To choose between two such possibilities, the main consideration should be that the preferred title of an article is the most common name for the topic of the article as would normally be used in articles written in English. So we prefer "Italy" over "Italia", and "Pope" over "Pope of Rome". However, it is often better to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa. There are many declarations of independence, but there is only one United States Declaration of Independence. For more on this, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions.

[edit] Categories for redirect pages

See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects for situations where categorizing a redirect might be helpful.

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. In some cases, however, adding categories to a redirect page allows legitimate alternative titles or names to be found in category lists. Redirect pages within categories will appear in italics.

[edit] Navigating redirects

When a redirected page is linked to normally, the user is taken to a page that is neither the original page nor the page to which it is redirected. Instead, the user is taken to a page that has the content of the destination page with a clickable mention of the redirect at the top, and the URL of the original page. To go to the original page, one can click on the aforementioned link, or append the string &redirect=no to the end of the URL. To go to the actual article, rather than simply viewing the mirror version, click on the "article" or "project page" tab at the top of the page. For instance, clicking on the phrase "clickable mention" above will take you to the "embedded link" page, which is redirected to the "hyperlink" page. Towards the top of the page is the phrase "Redirected from Embedded link", with the words "Embedded link" in blue. Clicking on these words will take you to the actual Embedded link page. Directly above the article title "Hyperlink" at the top of the page is the word "article" in blue. Clicking on this word will take you to the actual Hyperlink page.

[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.

The templates in the following lists are used to classify redirect pages, depending on the reason for the redirect. Use as many of these templates to tag the redirect as are applicable. Some redirects will have both alternative spellings, alternative capitalisations, and perhaps be a redirection to a list article entry or section. In the final analysis, all these templates do is establish a categorization of the redirect page, and like articles, more than one category can – and frequently should – apply.

[edit] Spellings, misspellings, tenses and capitalisations

[edit] Sub-topics and small topics in broader contexts

[edit] Alternative names and languages

[edit] Miscellaneous and administrative redirects

[edit] Avoiding broken links on merges

Redirects can be used to avoid breaking of links on article merges. We try to avoid broken links because they are annoying to our readers. Therefore, if you change the layout of some section of Wikipedia, or merge two duplicate articles, 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.

[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 is not necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points: see these instructions for help doing 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.

1. The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting Google to love.
5. It is a cross-namespace redirect out of article space, such as one pointing into the User or Wikipedia namespace. The major exception to this rule is the "CAT:" shortcut redirects, which technically are in the main article space but in practice form their own "pseudo-namespaces".
6. 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.
7. If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name, it is unlikely to be useful. Implausible typos or misnomers are potential candidates for speedy deletion, if recently created.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. They aid searches on certain terms.
4. You risk breaking incoming or internal links by deleting the redirect. Old CamelCase links and old subpage links should be left alone in case there are any existing links on external pages pointing to them.
5. 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.
6. The redirect is to a plural form or to a singular form, or to some other grammatical form.

[edit] Neutrality of redirects

Note that redirects are not covered by Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. This covers only article titles, which are required to be neutral (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Article naming). Perceived lack of neutrality in redirects is therefore not a valid reason for deletion. Non-neutral redirects should point to neutrally titled articles about the subject of the term.

Non-neutral redirects are commonly created for three reasons:

1. Articles that are created using non-neutral titles are routinely moved to a new neutral title, which leaves behind the old non-neutral title as a working redirect (e.g. Dalmatian Kristallnacht → Dalmatian anti-Serb riots of May 1991).
2. Articles created as POV forks may be deleted and replaced by a redirect pointing towards the article from which the fork originated (e.g. Barack Obama Muslim rumor → deleted and redirected to Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008).
3. The subject matter of articles may be commonly represented outside Wikipedia by non-neutral terms. Such terms cannot be used as Wikipedia article title, per the words to avoid guidelines and the general neutral point of view policy. For instance, the widely used but non-neutral expression "Attorneygate" is used to redirect to the neutrally titled Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. The article in question has never used that title, but the redirect was created to provide an alternative means of reaching it.

If a redirect is not an established term and is unlikely to be used by searchers, it is unlikely to be useful and may reasonably be nominated for deletion. However, if a redirect represents an established term that is used in multiple mainstream reliable sources (as defined by Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources), it should be kept even if non-neutral, as it will facilitate searches on such terms. Please keep in mind that RfD is not the place to resolve most editorial disputes.

[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" other than mis-spellings or other obvious close variants of the article title are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article or section to which the redirect goes. It will often be appropriate to bold the redirected term. For example:

• James Tiptree, Jr. (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Bradley Sheldon ...
  • James Tiptree, Jr., redirect from Alice Sheldon
• Water (H2O, HOH) is the most abundant molecule ...
  • Water (molecule), redirect from H2O, NB not bolded

If there is an ambiguity associated with a redirect, one of the redirect disambiguation templates may be useful.

Do not cause a secondary redirect. They do not 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] Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken

There is nothing inherently wrong with linking to redirects. Some editors are tempted, upon finding a link to a redirect page, to remove the redirect and point the link directly at the target page. While there are a limited number of cases where this is beneficial, it is generally an unhelpful exercise, and it can actually be detrimental.

With a few limited exceptions, there are no good reasons to pipe links solely to avoid redirects. It is almost never helpful to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]].

It is likewise unhelpful to edit visible links for no other reason than to avoid redirects. That is, editors should not change, for instance, [[Franklin Roosevelt]] to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] just to "fix a redirect". This rule does not apply to cases where there are other reasons to make the change, such as linking to an unprintworthy redirect.

Reasons not to change redirects include:

• Redirects can indicate possible future articles.
• Introducing unnecessary invisible text makes the article more difficult to read in page source form.
• Non-piped links make better use of the "what links here" tool, making it easier to track how articles are linked and helping with large-scale changes to links.

Furthermore, not only are Wikipedia editors asked not to worry about performance, changing redirects to direct links does not significantly improve performance anyway. See also Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects.

Exceptions:

• It is preferable to change redirected links in navigational templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles (e.g. {{US Presidents}} at the end of 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.
• It may be appropriate to make this kind of change if the hint that appears when a user hovers over the link is misleading.

[edit] Redirecting non-articles

[edit] Template redirects

A template T2 can be redirected to another template T1 by entering the following command at the top of T2:

#REDIRECT [[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.

A categorisation template such as {{R from other template}} should be added to T2 as follows:

{{R from other 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] Category redirects

Although it is possible to attempt to redirect categories by adding a line such as #REDIRECT [[:Category:Automotive technologies]] to a category, it is not generally recommended because of limitations in the mediawiki software. Categories "redirected" in this way do not prevent the addition of articles to the redirected category. Articles added to the "redirected" category do not show up as in the target category. Until these issues are addressed (in future versions of the software), #REDIRECT should not be added to category pages.

"Soft" redirects for categories can be created using {{Category redirect}}. A bot traverses categories redirected in this manner moving articles out of the redirected category into the target category, see Template talk:Category redirect.

[edit] See also

• Help:Moving a page
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation
• Wikipedia:Double redirects (maintenance list for items to be fixed and instructions after moving a page)
• Wikipedia:Hatnote
• Wikipedia:How to edit a page
• Wikipedia:List of interwiki redirects
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
• Wikipedia:Redirects to be made
• Wikipedia:Soft redirect
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect
• User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects-project

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Redirect