To redirect a page (1) to a different page (2), enter on the top of page 1:
#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE 2]]
For example, to redirect the Cambridge University page to the University of Cambridge page, edit the Cambridge University page and enter:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]]
Please note that you can only redirect to articles, not sections in them; although the syntax allows them, e.g.
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge#History]]
they don't work.
Everything after the redirect line will be blanked when you save the page. Any text on the same line as the redirect will stay, but will not be visible unless someone edits 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. 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]]. E.g. for the redirect page University of Cambridge,
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]] {{R for alternate capitalization}}
That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below.
More examples are included below:
What do we use redirects for?[]
| Reason | Usage notes, and text that will be shown | Tag | Category to find articles so tagged |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abbreviations | Template:R from abbreviation
|
{{R from abbreviation}} | Category:Redirects from abbreviation |
| Misspellings | Template:R from misspelling
|
{{R from misspelling}} | Category:Redirects from misspellings |
| Other spellings, other punctuation | Template:R from alternate spelling
|
{{R from alternate spelling}} | Category:Redirects from alternate spellings |
| Other capitalizations, for use in links | Template:R for alternate capitalization
|
{{R for alternate capitalization}} | Category:Redirects for alternative capitalization |
| Other capitalizations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalization article title is case-insensitive | Template:R for alternate capitalization
Adding a redirect for mixed-capitalization article titles (e.g., Isle of Wight) allows "Go" to these articles to be case-insensitive. For example, without the redirect Isle of wight a "Go" for "Isle Of wight" or any capitalization other than exactly 'Isle of Wight' would not find the article Isle of Wight. Why: Articles whose titles contain mixed-capitalization words (not all initial caps, or not all lower case except the first word) are found via "Go" only by an exact case match. (Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalized are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.) Note: "Go" related redirects are needed only if the article title has more than two words and words following the first have different capitalizations. They are not needed, for example, for proper names which are all initial caps. Examples:
|
{{R for alternate capitalization}} | Category:Redirects for alternative capitalization |
| Other names, pseudonyms, nicknames, and synonyms | Template:R from alternate name
|
{{R from alternate name}} | Category:Redirects from alternate names |
| Scientific names | Template:R from scientific name
|
{{R from scientific name}} | Category:Redirects from scientific names |
| Other languages | Template:R from alternate language
|
{{R from alternate language}} | Category:Redirects from alternate languages |
| Accents | Template:R from ASCII
|
{{R from ASCII}} | Category:Redirects from titles with ASCII |
| Plurals, tenses, etc. | Template:R from plural
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}} | Category:Redirects from plurals |
| Related words | Template:R from related word
|
{{R from related word}} | Category:Redirects from related words |
| Sub-topics or closely related topics that should be explained within the text | Template:R with possibilities
|
{{R with possibilities}} | Category:Redirects with possibilities |
| Facilitate disambiguation | Template:R to disambiguation page
|
{{R to disambiguation page}} | Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages |
| To track statements that date quickly | Template:R for as of
|
{{R for as of}} | Category:Redirects from "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; individual articles may be created for these years in future. For more information, follow the category link.
|
{{R to decade}} | Category:Redirects to decade |
| To redirect from a shortcut | Template:R from shortcut
|
{{R from shortcut}} | Category:Redirects from shortcut |
| Oldstyle CamelCase links | Template:R from CamelCase
|
{{R from CamelCase}} | Category:Redirects from CamelCase |
| links autogenerated from EXIF information | Template:R from EXIF
|
{{R from EXIF}} | Category:Redirects from EXIF information |
| From school microstub to merge location | Template:R from school
|
{{R from school}} | Category: Redirects from school articles |
- Avoiding broken links (see below)
- Minor but notable topics
Sub-topic redirects 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 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 that redirects lower search engine rankings.
See also: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages which contains a somewhat longer list of available redirect templates
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 reorganizations:
- 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
When should we delete a redirect?[]
To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it on redirects for deletion. See deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion.
This 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.
{{Wikipedia:Redirect/DeletionReasons}}
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.
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.
Don't fix redirects that aren't broken[]
Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the redirect so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly—for instance, if the link is to a misspelling or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. Most especially, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[direct|redirect]].
Some editors are under the mistaken impression that fixing such links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. But because editing a page is thousands of times more expensive for the servers than following a redirect, the opposite is actually true.
Credits[]
This page has been adapted from
From HowTo Wiki, a Wikia wiki.