Wikipedia:Redirect

Most redirects are untargeted, i.e. they lead simply to a page, not to any specific section of the page. This is usually done when there is more than one possible name under which an article might be sought (for example, Cellphone redirects to the article Mobile phone). For deciding which should be the actual title of the article, see WP:Article titles.

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. For example, the page Malia Obama contains the code #REDIRECT [[Family of Barack Obama#Malia and Sasha Obama]], which redirects to the Malia and Sasha Obama section in the article Family of Barack Obama. Therefore, entering Malia Obama will bring the searcher straight to the content that deals with "Malia and Sasha Obama".

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.

A retarget in a redirect can either mean changing the page or changing the section that a redirect goes to. The term is used in redirects for discussion as an alternative to deleting it if the redirect can instead serve a purpose in targeting a different place in Wikipedia. The related term refine is used in RfD to mean retargeting a redirect to a specific section of its target page.

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.^[2] 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 ==
<!-- "Vaccine overload" redirects here. -->

To ensure that a redirect will not break if a section title gets altered, or 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 {{subst:anchor}} template. Alternative anchors for section headings are ideally placed directly before the name of the heading, after the opening equals signs:

== {{subst:Anchor|anchor name}} Section title ==

Substitution ({{subst:Anchor}}) is preferable to simply using {{Anchor}} because otherwise, when the section is edited via its own "[edit]" link, the anchor markup and alternative section title(s) will appear as undesirable clutter at the beginning of revision history entries. (See MOS:RENAMESECTION for further discussion of this.)

The anchor text will not be visible on the page, 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. If several logically independent aspects of a topic are discussed under a single section header and should be linked to, it is sometimes useful to define separate anchors for them, if the current amount of information doesn't justify a division into multiple sections already. This makes it easier to rearrange contents on a page as it develops since those anchors can be moved with their corresponding contents without a need to fix up incoming links.

For example, in the Google Search article, the text {{Anchor|calculator}} is placed at the point where Google Calculator is discussed. The Google Calculator page can then be redirected to Google Search#calculator.

When a section title is known to be the target of incoming links, the Wikipedia Manual of Style suggests creating a redundant anchor with the same name as the section title, so that such links will continue to work even if someone renames the section without creating an anchor with the old name. Technically, the redundant section and anchor names result in invalid HTML.^[3] However, when a document contains multiple tags with the same id value, browsers are required to return the first one, so in practice, this is not a problem.^[4]

Be careful with anchor capitalization, as redirects are case-sensitive in standards-compliant browsers.^[5]

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 in a few days; however, an editor should not leave behind any self-created double redirects.

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:

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.

Most redirect pages are not placed in article categories. There are three types of redirect categorization that are helpful and useful:

• Maintenance categories are in use for particular types of redirects, such as Category:Redirects from initialisms, in which a redirect page may be sorted using the {{R from initialism}} template. One major use of these categories is to determine which redirects are fit for inclusion in a printed subset of Wikipedia. See WP:Template messages/Redirect pages for functional and alphabetical lists of these templates. A brief functional list of redirect category (rcat) templates is also found in the {{R template index}} navbar.
• Shortcut

  • WP:ACATRWP:ACATR
  Sometimes a redirect is placed in an article category because the form of the redirected title is more appropriate to the context of that category, e.g. Honey Lantree used to redirect to the band article The Honeycombs, but the redirect was placed in Category:1943 births and other categories which related to Lantree as an individual. (Redirects appear in italics in category listings.)
• Discussion pages. If a discussion/talk page exists for a redirect, please ensure (1) that the talk page's WikiProject banners are tagged with the "class=Redirect" parameter and (2) that the talk page is tagged at the TOP with the {{Talk page of redirect}} template. If the discussion page is a redirect, then it may be tagged with appropriate redirect categorization templates (rcats).

To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it on redirects for discussion. See the WP: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.

Wikipedia follows 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.

Most (but not all) "inbound redirects" other than misspellings or other obvious close variants of the article title should be mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article or section to which the redirect goes. It will often be appropriate to put the redirected term in bold at its first occurrence in the target. For example:

• Alice Bradley Sheldon (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author better known as James Tiptree Jr. ...
  • James Tiptree Jr., redirects from Alice Sheldon

If other articles titled a redirected term exist, a hatnote should be placed at the top of the target article or targeted section that will direct readers to the other meanings or to a relevant disambiguation page. This is usually done using one of the redirect disambiguation templates (examples).

It may also be helpful to search the list of categories for related terms.

Removing all content in a problematic article and replacing it with a redirect is common practice, known as blank-and-redirect. It is good practice to notify the article creator or significant contributors using {{uw-blar}}. If other editors disagree with this blanking, its contents can be recovered from page history, as the article has not been deleted. If editors cannot agree, the content issues should be discussed at the relevant talk page, and other methods of dispute resolution should be used, such as restoring the article and nominating the article for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.^[1]

To make it easier for other editors to find the history of the blanked article, it's good practice to add a short notice using {{Blank and redirect notice}}, even if no content has been merged there. This is especially useful if the blanked article had few visits and infrequent edits. If the redirect replaces an article that has been deleted, this notice is the only way for editors to know that a previous version of the article existed at all.

There is usually nothing wrong with linking to redirects to articles. Some editors are tempted, upon finding a link to a redirect page, to bypass the redirect and point the link directly at the target page. However, changing to a piped link is beneficial only in a few cases. Piping links solely to avoid redirects is generally a time-wasting exercise that can actually be detrimental. It is almost never helpful to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]].

That is, editors should not change, for instance, [[Franklin Roosevelt]] to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] or [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]] just to "fix a redirect". However, it is acceptable to change it to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] if it is preferred that "Franklin D. Roosevelt" actually appear in the visible text. Editors should also not change redirects with possibilities like [[Journal of the Franklin Institute]] to [[Franklin Institute#Journal of the Franklin Institute|Journal of the Franklin Institute]], so that readers arrive at the more pertinent article in the eventuality that it is created.

Reasons not to bypass redirects include:

• Redirects can indicate possible future articles (see {{R with possibilities}}).
• Introducing unnecessary wikitext 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.
• Shortcuts or redirects to embedded anchors or sections of articles or of Wikipedia's advice pages should never be bypassed, as the anchors or section headings on the page may change over time. Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links. (The Rdcheck tool is extremely useful in such cases for finding which redirects need to be changed after an article is updated.)
• Intentional links to disambiguation pages always use the title with "(disambiguation)", even if that is a redirect.
• If editors persistently use a redirect instead of an article title, it may be that the article needs to be moved rather than the redirect changed. As such the systematic "fixing of redirects" may eradicate useful information that can be used to help decide on the "best" article title.
• It is an {{R from former name}}, and in its context of use, this was the contemporary name. For example, when discussing contemporary news coverage of World War II, using the name a publication had then makes better sense than using its modern name.

Good reasons to bypass redirects include:

• It is usually preferable not to use redirected links in navigational templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles (e.g., {{US presidents}} at the end of George Washington). When a template is placed on an article and contains a direct link to the same article (rather than 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. There are exceptions to this exception: where a redirect represents a distinct sub-topic within a larger article and is not merely a variant name, it is preferable to leave the redirect in the template.
• It may be appropriate to make this kind of change if the hint or tooltip that appears when a user hovers over the link is misleading (see Principle of least astonishment).
• Spelling errors and other mistakes should be corrected. Don't link to a misspelled redirect. This does not necessarily mean that the misspelled redirect should be deleted (see {{R from misspelling}}).
• While doing upper or lowercase edit runs, and referring to an existing list of places on Wikipedia where these need to be changed, it is much easier to keep track of incorrect items by correcting the redirects.
• Links on disambiguation pages. See WP:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages § Piping and redirects for rationale and exceptions.
• Radio and TV station call letters, since call letters given up by one station can be used later by a different station.
• In other namespaces, particularly the template and portal namespaces in which subpages are common, any link or transclusion to a former page title that has become a redirect following a page move or merge should be updated to the new title for naming consistency.
• Links on the Main Page, to avoid stealthy vandalism by retargeting high-traffic redirects. Main Page links that point to an article section should utilise a section link.

A template can be redirected to another template in the same way, e.g., by entering the following markup at the top of a template T2:

#REDIRECT [[Template:T1]]

This allows the template name T2 to be used instead of the actual template name T1. All the parameters of T1 will be respected by T2.

A redirect categorisation (rcat) template such as {{R from move}} may be added to T2 (on the third line below the #REDIRECT line) as follows:

#REDIRECT [[Template:T1]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from move}}
}}

While template shortcut/alias redirects are common, they may infrequently cause confusion and make updating template calls more complicated. For example, if calls to T1 are to be changed to some new template NT1, articles must be searched for {{T1}} and a separate search must also be made for each of its aliases (including T2 in this example). Moreover, changes to syntax, corrections, scans and other processes (for example tag dating) must take into account all applicable redirects.

Sometimes, a redirect to an article pertaining to a very controversial topic will be fully or, more rarely, semi-protected indefinitely. This is done when any of the following criteria are met:

1. There is no reason for it to be edited
2. It is frequently expanded into whole articles
3. It is an obvious vandalism target
4. It redirects and/or refers to a very controversial topic

Redirects that are protected include ObamaObama, HitlerHitler, and 9/119/11. Soft redirects that are protected include obvious vandalism targets like dumbass.

Redirects in other namespaces may be protected for technical reasons or are protected under existing guidelines. For example, a template redirect (shorthand) used thousands of times qualifies it as a highly visible template eligible for template protection.

Do not create inter-category redirects by adding #REDIRECT [[Target page]] to a category page. Unlike when renaming articles, categories cannot be redirected using "hard" redirects. Articles added to a redirected category will not show up in the target category. And since redirected categories do not become "red links", editors will not be aware when they add an article to a redirected category.^[2]

Instead, a form of "soft redirect" may be used in limited circumstances. You can create a category redirect by adding {{Category redirect|target}} to the category page. Bots patrol these categories and move articles to the "target" of the redirect.

If you need to add a redirect category to a {{Category redirect}}, use the template's second parameter. For example: {{Category redirect | Years of the 19th century in Ceylon | {{R from category navigation}} {{R from template-generated category}} }}

Category redirects are costly. While placing a page in a category redirect is not a big problem, it is a problem. There are plenty of helpful uses of category redirects, but category redirects are not as cheap as regular redirects. Links to article redirects are not broken: i.e. click on the link and you are automatically redirected to its target. However, links to category redirects are broken and need to be fixed, except when resolved by a template (i.e. the template generates categories using a pattern, and some of the resulting category names are intentionally resolved by the use of {{Resolve category redirect}} within the template, as in the Ceylon example above). Placing a page into a category redirect makes it show up in the category redirect – not its target – until a bot comes along and fixes the link.

It is possible to redirect a module, however it uses a different syntax. To redirect Module:A to Module:B, add the line return require [[Module:B]] to Module:A. Cross-namespace redirects from module space, however, use the regular syntax, e.g. to redirect Module:Example to Template:Example, put #REDIRECT [[Template:Example]] on the module page.

When a page is moved, a redirect is automatically left behind. Some groups of users (those who possess a suppressredirect right) have the ability to prevent the redirect being created, by unchecking the box labelled "Leave a redirect behind." Currently these groups are administrators, bots, page movers, and global rollbackers. In some circumstances, a page should be moved, but a redirect from its current name is inappropriate, such as reverting page-move vandalism. Suppressing the redirect can avoid an extra action (page removal) and save time in these cases.

However, in general, the redirect will be a useful entry in the history, and it is best to leave it behind, unless there is a good reason to suppress the redirect, such as vandalism, userfying recently created malplaced items or freeing a title to be occupied immediately by another page (e.g., moving term to accurate term and term (disambiguation) to term). Redirects leave a trail to help readers find the old article, in case a new article is created at its previous location, and to prevent linkrot. Therefore, we usually neither suppress nor delete redirects. As Brooke Vibber said, "Not breaking links helps everyone, especially us first and foremost". She also said that the removal of (file) redirects is "extremely user-hostile and makes the project less useful".

A Wikipedia redirect is not the same as an HTTP redirect—it does not generate an HTTP 302 (or other 30x) response. Instead, a page with almost the same content as the target of the redirect is generated by the MediaWiki software, differing in that a small-text note appears below the title of the page, identifying the name of the redirect used to get there (and linking to it in such a way that it can be accessed without the redirect, e.g. so it can be changed). When a user clicks on a redirect such as housecat, the page URL initially will be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housecat, but the URL shown by the browser will change to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat after the page loads.

On one hand, this allows links like housecat#Characteristics to work as expected, but it also requires redirects to anchors to be implemented as a piece of JavaScript that jumps to an appropriate section after the page has loaded. For example, second-stage boot loader, which is rendered as the URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-stage_boot_loader, is a page defined as a #REDIRECT to Booting#SECOND-STAGE. "SECOND-STAGE", in this case, is a manually defined anchor (using the markup "=== Second-stage boot loader === {{anchor|SECOND-STAGE}}") that will persist even if the section is renamed. However, whether a redirect points to a manually defined anchor, or an anchor defined implicitly via a section name, the behavior will be the same: the page will automatically be scrolled down to the pointed-to anchor only after the page finishes loading (at which point the URL bar will also change to reflect the redirected-to URL, including "#anchor" portion, rather than the redirected-from URL).

This page is referenced in the Wikipedia Glossary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to MediaWiki redirects.

• Category:Redirect templates
• Category:Wikipedia redirects
• Wikipedia:Moving a page
• Help:Redirect
• Redirect technical help at Meta-Wiki
• Special:ListRedirects
• Special:BrokenRedirects
• Special:DoubleRedirects
• Template:Redirect
• Template:No redirect
• Template:Is redirect
• Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects, to suggest a missing redirect
• Wikipedia:Hatnote (see above)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
• Wikipedia:Soft redirect
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect/Style guide
• Wikipedia:Database reports/Page count by namespace and by non-redirects/redirects
• Wikipedia:Deletion by redirection
• Capricorn, a Wikipedia gadget for categorizing redirects
• Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap
• Wikipedia:Redirects are costly