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 screenshot of Wikipedia showing a redirect from Pichilemo to Pichilemu.

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 "UK" in the search box or click on 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 special wikitext 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 more advanced syntax.

Redirect pages can contain other content below the redirect, such as redirect category templates, and category links (which provide a way to list article sections in categories).

Redirects are used to help people arrive more quickly at the page they want to read; this page contains guidance on how to use them properly. For technical help relating to how redirects work, see Help:Redirect. Other relevant pages are Wikipedia:Double redirects, Wikipedia:Hatnote § Redirect and WikiProject Redirect.

Purposes of redirects

Reasons for creating and maintaining redirects include:

• Alternative names redirect to the most appropriate article title (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 or 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, Einstein redirects to Albert Einstein, 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 searches made via Wikipedia's search engine, but may aid linking from other articles and external sites, as well as direct URL entry.


• To comply with the maintenance of nontrivial edit history, pursuant to Wikipedia:Merging#PROMERGE for copyright licensing requirements.


• 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 that do not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title (for example, Durham (disambiguation) redirects to Durham). These help maintenance by allowing deliberate links to disambiguation pages to be distinguished from links that need to be disambiguated.


• 
  Shortcuts (for example, Wikipedia: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 Exchangeable image file format information (Adobe Photoshop CS Windows redirects to Adobe Photoshop).


• Finding what links to a section, when links are made to the redirect rather than the section.

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).

How to make a redirect

Editing the source directly

To create a basic redirect using the source editor, type #REDIRECT [[target page name here]] as the only text on the page. The capitalization of the word REDIRECT doesn't matter. For instance, if you were redirecting from "UK" to "United Kingdom", this would be the entire body of the "UK" page:

#REDIRECT [[United Kingdom]]

Using VisualEditor

To create a redirect using the VisualEditor:

1. Open the "page options" menu (icon with three parallel horizontal bars) at the top right of the editor


2. Select "Page settings"


3. Check the box marked "Redirect this page to"


4. Enter the name of the target page in the text box below the checkbox


5. Click on the blue "Apply changes" button


6. Save the page. You may enter an edit summary, or an automatic summary will be generated.

When moving a page

Redirects can also be automatically created when you move (rename) an existing page.

How to edit a redirect or convert it into an article

Sometimes an existing redirect should really be handled by a full article, per Category:Redirects with possibilities. For example, the name of a notable musician (who does not yet have an article) may instead be a redirect to an existing article about a band of which the musician is a member. In this case, you may edit the redirect to make it into an article. Also, if an existing redirect points to the wrong page, you may edit the redirect to point to a different page.

If you want to edit a redirect page you must use a special technique in order to get to the redirect page itself. This is because when you try to go straight to the redirect page and edit it, the redirect page will automatically redirect you to its target page (because this is what a redirect page is meant to do). Below is an example of why you might need to go to a redirect page itself (to do a small edit) and how to actually get there.

For example, say Trygve Halvdan Lie did not have his own article, and so this link was a redirect to the page Secretary-General of the United Nations. If, later on, the page Trygve Lie was created as a biography, the page Trygve Halvdan Lie should be changed to redirect to Trygve Lie per WP:COMMONNAME. To do this, go to the redirect page by clicking the existing redirect note on the target page, which in this case would read "(Redirected from Trygve Halvdan Lie)". Once there, you may click the "Edit" tab, and change the page from

#REDIRECT [[Secretary-General of the United Nations]]

to

#REDIRECT [[Trygve Lie]]

When adding or changing a redirect, always verify the links that already point there. For instance, if another person named Trygve Lie becomes very well known, it would make sense to make Trygve Lie a redirect to his page (after renaming the existing Trygve Lie page). Such a change cannot be made without changing all the preexisting links to Trygve Lie; these links can be found by clicking on What links here in the left hand menu.

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, 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.

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. (While spaces and underscores are interchangeable in the current implementation of the Wikimedia software, it is generally good practice and aids maintenance to use exactly the same spelling in links as is used in the corresponding targets also for these characters.) (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. Alternative anchors for section headings are ideally placed directly in front of the text of the heading:

==AnchorSection title==).

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. 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 is placed at the point where Google Calculator is described. The title Google Calculator can then be redirected to Google search#calculator.

Warning

1. Don't give an anchor the same name as a section heading – this creates invalid code, as anchor names must be unique.


2. Be careful with anchor capitalization – section redirects are case-sensitive in standards-compliant browsers.

Double redirects

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.

Linking to a redirect

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: 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.

Categorizing redirect pages

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 Wikipedia: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.


• 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. (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).

Redirects from moves

When a page is renamed/moved, a redirect that is titled with the replaced page name is created and is automatically tagged with the R from move template. This sorts the redirect into Category:Redirects from moves.

When should we delete a redirect?

To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it on redirects for discussion. See the 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. For example, if the user searches for "New Articles", and is redirected to a disambiguation page for "Articles", it would take much longer to get to the newly added articles on Wikipedia.


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 legitimately discussed in the article), or "Joe Bloggs" to "Loser". (Speedy deletion criterion G10 may apply.) See also: § Neutrality of redirects.


4. 
   The redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam. (Speedy deletion criterion G11 may apply.)


5. 
   The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting Apple to Orange. (Speedy deletion criterion G1 may apply.)


6. 
   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 are the pseudo-namespace shortcut redirects, which technically are in the main article space. Some long-standing cross-namespace redirects are also kept because of their long-standing history and potential usefulness. "MOS:" redirects, for example, are an exception to this rule. (Note "WP:" redirects are in the Wikipedia namespace, WP: being an alias for Wikipedia:.) Speedy deletion criterion R2 may apply in some cases.


7. 
   If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to itself or to an article that does not exist, it can be immediately deleted under speedy deletion criterion G8, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first.


8. 
   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. Implausible typos or misnomers are candidates for speedy deletion criterion R3, if recently created.


9. 
   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. If the move is uncontroversial, tag the redirect for G6 speedy deletion. If not, take the article to Requested moves.


10. 
    If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains virtually no information on the subject.

1. 
   They have a potentially useful page history, or an edit history that should be kept to comply with the licensing requirements for a merge (see Wikipedia:Merge and delete). On the other hand, 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. For example, if someone sees the "Keystone State" mentioned somewhere but does not know what that refers to, then he or she will be able to find out at the Pennsylvania (target) article.


4. 
   You risk breaking incoming or internal links by deleting the redirect. For example, redirects resulting from page moves should not normally be deleted without good reason. Links that have existed for a significant length of time, including CamelCase links and old subpage links, should be left alone in case there are any existing links on external pages pointing to them. See also Wikipedia:Link rot § Link rot on non-Wikimedia sites.


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 being untruthful, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways. The pageviews tool can also provide evidence of outside utility.


6. 
   The redirect is to a closely related word form, such as a plural form to a singular form.


7. 
   The redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and deleting the redirect would prevent unregistered and non-confirmed users from expanding the redirect, and thereby make the encyclopedia harder to edit and reduce the pool of available editors. (Unregistered and non-confirmed users cannot create new pages in the mainspace; they can only edit existing pages, including redirects, which they can expand.) This criterion does not apply to redirects that are indefinitely semi-protected or more highly protected.

Neutrality of redirects

Just as article titles using non-neutral language are permitted in some circumstances, so are redirects. Because redirects are less visible to readers, more latitude is allowed in their names. Perceived lack of neutrality in redirect names is therefore not a sufficient reason for their deletion. In most cases, non-neutral but verifiable redirects should point to neutrally titled articles about the subject of the term. Non-neutral redirects may be tagged with R from non-neutral name.

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. Climategate → Climatic Research Unit email controversy).


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 now redirected to Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories).


3. The subject matter of articles may be represented by some sources outside Wikipedia in non-neutral terms. Such terms are generally avoided in Wikipedia article titles, per the words to avoid guidelines and the general neutral point of view policy. For instance the 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 because a number of press reports use the term.

The exceptions to this rule would be redirects that are not established terms and are unlikely to be useful, and therefore may be nominated for deletion, perhaps under deletion reason #3. However, if a redirect represents an established term that is used in multiple mainstream 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?

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.

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., redirects from Alice Sheldon
    

But insignificant or minor redirects can skip this:

• 
  Density of water redirects to Properties of water. There is no need to insert a bolded density of water sentence in the lead section; it is a minor subtopic of the article.

If the redirected term could have other meanings, a hatnote (examples) 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; adding a hatnote and a category link to the old term will make related pages easier to locate.

Redirects that replace previous articles

Removing all content in a problematic article and replacing it with a redirect is common practice, known as blank-and-redirect. If other editors disagree with this blanking, its contents can be recovered from page history, as the article has not been formally 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 or listing on Wikipedia:Requests for comments for further input.

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

Content of the replaced article

If the topic of the article can be reasonably thought to describe a notable topic, mark the redirect with the template
Redirect with possibilities to indicate that it could be expanded in the future. You may also consider turning the article into a stub by removing all unsourced content and keeping the valid references, instead of blanking it.

Note that certain forms of blanking are not allowed. Illegitimate blanking of valid content without reason is considered vandalism, a form of disruptive editing. Other forms of blank-and-redirect, although not vandalism, are still undesirable. If you want to rename the article by cutting and pasting text to a new article with a different title, you should instead move the page with the Move option. If you want to keep some content from the blanked article and add it to the target article, you should follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Merging § How to merge. Both processes will create proper links to the edit history, which is required by the Wikipedia license for legal reasons to preserve attribution of content to its authors.

Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken

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 perfectly acceptable to change it to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] if for some reason it is preferred that "Franklin D. Roosevelt" actually appear in the visible text.

Reasons not to bypass redirects include:

• Redirects can indicate possible future articles (see R with possibilities).


• 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 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 which can be used to help decide on the "best" article title.

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 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.


• 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).


• Links on disambiguation pages. See Wikipedia: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 is to be updated to the new title for naming consistency.

Self-redirects

Avoid linking to titles that 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, linking to a title that redirects to a section or anchor within the article (redirects with R to section or R to anchor) is acceptable, as it facilitates navigation in particular on long articles that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen. In addition to readability benefits, when such redirects are marked with R with possibilities, they have the potential to become independent articles in the future. However, consider using Section links instead, when such redirects do not already exist.

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. 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

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.

Redirect protection

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:

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


5. Any combination of the above.

Redirects that are fully protected include Obama, Hitler, and 9/11. Soft redirects that are fully protected include obvious vandalism targets like dumbass and fatass.

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.

Category redirects

Do not create inter-category redirects, by adding a line #REDIRECT [[:Category:target category]] to a category page. Articles added to a "redirected" category do not show up in the target category, preventing proper categorization. What's worse, since redirected categories do not become "red links", editors won't be aware even when they add an article to a redirected category.

For an attempt to fix this issue in MediaWiki, see T5311.

Instead, "soft" redirects are used. It can be created by placing target in the category page. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Redirecting categories.

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, 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 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".

Technical notes

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#Anatomy 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-STAGESecond-stage boot loader ===") which 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).

See also

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


• Special:ListRedirects


• Special:BrokenRedirects


• Special:DoubleRedirects


• Template:Redirect


• Template:No 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


• 
  Sagittarius, a Wikipedia gadget for redirecting