More Information About Wikipedia:Redirect

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 occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts: WP:R WP:REDIR

This page in a nutshell: Redirects aid navigation and searching by allowing a page to be reached under alternative titles.

A redirect is a page which has no content itself, but sends the reader to another article or page, usually from an alternative title. For example, if you type "UK" in the search box, or follow 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 has the wikitext #REDIRECT [[United Kingdom]], 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 the [[Page_name#Section_title]] syntax.

This page contains guidance on the proper use of redirects on Wikipedia. For technical help relating to how redirects work, see Help:Redirect. Other relevant pages are WP:Double redirect, WP:Hatnote#Redirect and WikiProject Redirect.

Purposes of redirects

Reasons for creating and maintaining redirects include:

• Alternative names (for example, Edison Arantes do Nascimento redirects to Pelé).
• Less specific forms of names, for which the article subject is still the primary topic. For example, Hitler redirects to Adolf Hitler, 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 (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.
• Shortcuts (for example, WP:V redirects to Wikipedia:Verifiability). This is commonly done in project space, but not in article space.
• Alternative spellings or punctuation. For example, Colour redirects to Color, and Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera.
• Likely misspellings (for example, Condoleeza Rice redirects to Condoleezza Rice).
• Plurals (for example, Greenhouse gases redirects to Greenhouse gas).
• Related words (for example, Symbiont redirects to Symbiosis).
• Likely alternative capitalizations (for example, Natural Selection redirects to Natural selection). This is not necessary for user searching, but may aid linking from other articles and external sites.
• 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.)
• Representations using ASCII characters (for example, Kurt Goedel and Kurt Godel redirect to Kurt Gödel). Titles containing dashes should have redirects using hyphens.
• Redirects to disambiguation pages which do not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title (for example, America (disambiguation) redirects to America). These help maintenance by allowing deliberate links to disambiguation pages to be distinguished from links which need to be disambiguated.
• Old-style CamelCase links (if already in existence) (AnnaKournikova redirects to Anna Kournikova).
• Links auto-generated from EXIF information (Adobe Photoshop CS Windows redirects to Adobe Photoshop).

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).

Targeted and untargeted redirects

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 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, Malia Obama redirects to Family of Barack Obama#Malia Obama and Sasha Obama. Therefore, entering "Malia Obama" will bring the searcher straight to that section of the article Family of Barack Obama which deals with "Malia Obama 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.

The text given in the link on a targeted redirect page must exactly match the target section heading or anchor text, including capitalization. (In the absence of a match, the reader will simply be taken to the top of the target page.) 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==
 <!-- linked from redirect [[Vaccine overload]] -->

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 {{anchor}} template. The anchor text will not be visible (unless the {{visible anchor}} template is used), 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.

For example, in the Google search article, the text {{anchor|Calculator}} is placed at the point where Google Calculator is described. The title Google Calculator can then be redirected to Google search#Calculator.

Double redirects

The software will not follow chains of more than one redirect (see Double redirects). 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 anyway normally fixed by a bot after some time.)

Categorizing redirect pages

Most redirect pages are not placed in any categories. However there are two types of exception to this:

• Certain categories have been created for particular types of redirects, such as Category:Redirects from abbreviations, in which a redirect page may be placed using the {{R from abbreviation}} template. See Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages for a full list of these templates.
• 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. (Redirects appear in italics in category listings.)

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 or abusive, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs" (unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article), or "Joe Bloggs" to "Loser". (Speedy deletion criterion 10 may apply.)
4. The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting Apple to Orange.
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". (Note "WP:" redirects are in the Wikipedia namespace, WP: being an alias for Wikipedia.)
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.
8. If the target article needs to be moved to the redirect title, but the redirect has been edited before and has a history of its own, then it needs to be deleted to make way for move.
9. If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains little information on the subject. In these cases, it is better that the target article contain a redlink pointing back to the redirect.
10. If the redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam. (Speedy deletion criterion 11 may apply.)

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.

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 primary 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 titles, 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 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.

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 â€“ 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 ...
  • Properties of water, redirect from H2O, NB not bolded

If the redirected term could have other meanings, a hatnote should be placed at the top of the target article directing readers to the other meanings or to a relevant disambiguation page. This is usually done using one of the redirect disambiguation templates.

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 reason other 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 Washington). 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.

Self-redirects

Avoid linking to titles which redirect straight back to the page on which the link is found. (This situation may arise if a redirect is created from a red link on the page, or if the title was once was a separate page but was merged.) However it is acceptable to link to a title which redirects to a section within the article, especially in a long article that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen.

Template redirects

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.

A categorisation template such as {{R from other template}} should also be added to T2 (below the #REDIRECT line) as follows:

{{R from other template|T1}}

Redirects for templates can cause confusion and make updating template calls more complicated. For example, if calls to T1 are to be changed to some new template TN1, articles must be searched for {{T1}} and a separate such must be made for each of its its aliases (including T2 in this example).

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.

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 or userfying recently created malplaced items) 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, and to prevent linkrot. Therefore, usually we don't suppress nor delete redirects. As Brion Vibber said, "Not breaking links helps everyone, especially us first and foremost". He also described the removal of (file) redirects as "extremely user-hostile and makes the project less useful".

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Redirect

• Help:Redirect
• Help:Moving a page
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation
• Wikipedia:Double redirects
• Wikipedia:Hatnote (short notes placed at the top of an article to provide links to other similarly named articles)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
• Wikipedia:Redirects to be made
• Wikipedia:Soft redirect
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect