Help:Redirect

A redirect is a page which automatically sends visitors to another page, usually an article or section of an article. For example, if you type "TOC" in the search box, you will be taken to the article Help:Table of contents with a note at the top of the page (or on mobile, in a black message bar at the bottom): "(Redirected from TOC)". It is also possible to redirect to a specific section of the target page, using more advanced syntax.

See Wikipedia:Redirect on Wikipedia for a comprehensive explanation of this topic. Category:Redirects for a limited number of pages flagged as redirects.

Reasons

This is highly useful for:

• ensuring different variants of a name (plural, capitalization, etc.) all point to the same location
• Common misspellings
• alternative terms
• improving the chance that when someone uses the search box, they will find a relevant article

Creation

Redirects can be created, on new or existing pages, in two ways:

• using Visual editor
• in enhanced editor
  • with the Editing toolbar's Advanced Tools
  • manually (see below)

#Redirect [[page name you want to redirect to]]

Example:

• The TOC page redirects visitors to the Help:Table of contents page.
• When a visitor goes to the TOC page, there are instructions at the top of the page to automatically send visitors to the Help:Table of contents page instead. Those instructions are #Redirect [[Help:Table of contents]].
• When the visitor arrives at the Help:Table of contents page via the TOC redirect, they will see "(Redirected from TOC)" under the page title.

Visual editor

Turning an existing page into a redirect is done differently with the release of Visual editor.

1. navigate to page that you want to turn into a redirect
2. click edit to open Visual Editor
3. click on the hamburger to open "Page options"
4. select "Page settings"
5. click on the empty box in front of "Redirect this page to" to add a checkmark
6. type the name of the page in which you want to reader to be redirected
7. click the blue "Apply changes" box to close the dialog box
8. click on the blue "Save changes" box
9. enter an edit summary, such as turned page into a redirect
10. click on the blue "Save changes" box

Spotting redirects

You can tell a page has been redirected to an article by looking under the article title. You will see "(Redirected from [Page name]) there. The [Page name] will be a link to page redirecting to the article. The target of the redirect will be the article title.

File:How to tell a redirect.png

Double redirects

Double redirects are redirects that link to another redirect rather than to an actual article page. You can find double redirects in several ways:

1. There is a double redirects tool available from Special Pages.
2. USApedians can also identify double redirects linking to a specific page by using the "what links here" option in the "toolbox" (below the search window).

Double redirects are created in several ways but the most common way is when a page is "Moved". Anything that was redirecting to the page name before the move becomes a double redirect after the move. Double redirects are a problem because while the first redirect will automatically forward the reader to the second page, the second redirect will not happen automatically, and the reader will have to click on the redirect link to get to the page with the content they are seeking.

To fix a double redirect, edit the first redirect and redirect it to the current page thus bypassing the middle redirect. Watching for and fixing double redirects is a common task carried out for those who care about the wiki. It is part of a broad range of tasks that is commonly referred to as gardening. Keeping the double redirect queue empty is an important part of ensuring the wiki runs smoothly as the editors continually evolve the information.

Breaking redirects and disambiguation

Sometimes it is necessary to alter how a redirect behaves. Several reasons whey you might do this include:

• Editors want to create a topic page rather than have the term redirect
• Editors learn that the term means more than one thing and wish to covert the page to a "Disambiguation" page that lists the various meanings of the term. Example: ARP. Learn more at Disambiguation.

Breaking the redirect

The simplest way to break a redirect is to:

1. Search for the term and hit return. This will redirect you to the specified page.
2. Below the title, look for "Redirected from <page name>" and click the page name. That will return you to the actual redirect page. The URL will look like what you see below. Please note the &redirect=no at the end of the URL.

   https://saintapedia.org/w/index.php?title=VE&redirect=no

3. Edit the page and alter it as needed. Once the #redirect is removed at the beginning of the article, the page will no longer serve as a redirect.

Deleting a redirect

This information comes from Help:Delete#Reasons for deleting a redirect and Help:Reasons for deleting a redirect.

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):

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 the redirect should be deleted.
3. The redirect is offensive or abusive, such as redirecting "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs" (unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article), or "Joe Bloggs" to "Loser".
4. The redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam.
5. The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting "Apple" to "Orange"".
6. If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to itself or to an article that does not exist, it can be immediately deleted, 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. In particular, redirects from a foreign language title to a page whose subject is unrelated to that language (or a culture that speaks that language) should generally not be 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.
9. If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains virtually no information on the subject. In such a case, it is better that the target article contain a redlink than a redirect back to itself.

Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion reasons on Wikipedia

The major reasons why deletion of redirects is harmful are:

• a redirect may contain nontrivial edit history;
• if a redirect is reasonably old (or a redirect is created as a result of moving a page that has been there for quite some time), 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.

Additionally, there could exist (for example) links to the URL "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorneygate" anywhere on the Internet. If so, then those links might not show up by checking for (clicking on) "WhatLinksHere for Attorneygate"—since those links might come from somewhere outside Wikipedia.

Therefore consider the deletion only of either really harmful redirects or of very recent ones.

Related

• USApedia:Naming conventions
• Help:Renaming

• Category:Redirects