ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:Redirect

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A redirect is a page which has no content itself, but sends the reader to another article, section of an 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 contains 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 #REDIRECT [[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 Wikipedia:Double redirects, Wikipedia:Hatnote#Redirect and WikiProject Redirect.

A screenshot of Wikipedia showing a redirect from Pichilemo to Pichilemu.

Purposes of redirects

Reasons for creating and maintaining redirects include:

• Alternative names (for example, Edison Arantes do Nascimento redirects to Pelé).
• Plurals (for example, Greenhouse gases redirects to Greenhouse gas).
• Closely related words (for example, Symbiont redirects to Symbiosis).
• Adjectives/Adverbs point to noun forms (e.g. Treasonous redirects to Treason)
• 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 and initialisms (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.
• Alternative spellings or punctuation. For example, Colour redirects to Color, and Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera.
• Punctuation issues - titles containing dashes should have redirects using hyphens.
• Representations using ASCII characters, that is, common transliterations (for example, Pele also redirects to Pelé while Kurt Goedel and Kurt Godel redirect to Kurt Gödel).
• Likely misspellings (for example, Condoleeza Rice redirects to Condoleezza Rice).
• 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.)
• 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.
• Shortcuts (for example, WP:V redirects to Wikipedia:Verifiability). This is commonly done in project space, but not in article space.
• 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).

There are redirect templates to explain the reason for a redirect.

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 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 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 usually fixed by a bot after some time.)

Linking to a redirect

ମୁଖ୍ୟ ପୃଷ୍ଠା: MoS linking redirects

A redirect may be linked to from a source page the same way an article is linked—by placing the redirect page name within a set of double brackets, such as:

[[Some name]]

replacing Some name with the name of the redirect page to link. To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use:

{{noredirect|Some name}}

replacing Some name with the name of the redirect page to link. Clicking on a noredirect link will send the reader to the redirect page rather than the final redirect destination.

Categorizing redirect pages

ମୁଖ୍ୟ ପୃଷ୍ଠା: Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects

Most redirect pages are not placed in any categories. However there are three 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.)
• Discussion pages. If a discussion/talk page exists for an article, please change the article's class to "class=Redirect" for all projects.

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.

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 misspellings 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 ...
  • Properties of water, redirect from H2O, NB not bolded

If the redirected term could have other meanings, a hatnote (examples) 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 (examples).

It may also helpful to search the List of Categories for related terms; adding a hatnote and a category link to the old term will make related pages easier to locate.

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 bypass 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 (bypass) 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.
• Shortcuts or redirects to subsections of articles or Wikipedia's advice pages should never be bypassed, as the section headings on the page may change over time. Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links.
• 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 which can be used to help decide on the "best" article title.

Exceptions:

• In many cases 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 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 that appears when a user hovers over the link is misleading.
• [[redirect|target]] may be replaced with [[target]] if [[redirect]] is not a {{Redirect with possibilities}}.

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 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 move}} may be added to T2 (below the #REDIRECT line) as follows:

{{R from move|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 search must 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 redirects.

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. 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 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 Brion Vibber said, "Not breaking links helps everyone, especially us first and foremost". He also said that the removal of (file) redirects is "extremely user-hostile and makes the project less useful".

See also

• Category:Redirect templates
• Category:Wikipedia redirects
• Help:Moving a page
• Help:Redirect
• Special:BrokenRedirects
• Special:DoubleRedirects
• Template:Redirect
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation
• Wikipedia:Double redirects
• Wikipedia:Hatnote (see above)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
• Wikipedia:Redirects to be made
• Wikipedia:Soft redirect
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect/Style guide