wikidoc:Redirect

This section discusses policy on the use and abuse of redirects on the English Wikidoc.

How to make a redirect
To redirect a page (1) to a different page (2), enter the following on the top of page 1. Please note that although the redirect command itself is not case sensitive, some anti vandalism bots will automatically revert you unless it is all capital letters.

 #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 redirect only to articles, not sections in them; although the syntax allows them, they don't work:

 #REDIRECT University of Cambridge#History 

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:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no 

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. For example, on the redirect page University of cambridge,

 #REDIRECT University of Cambridge 

That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below.

<!-- It's possible to add a text in the same line after the #REDIRECT to describe why it had been created. There is a list of Redirect message templates (with titles starting with "R_") in the Template namespace that may be used for this, e.g. {</nowikidisplays, e.g. on Aasen,_Ivar_Andreas ''

More examples are included below:

What do we use redirects for?

 * 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 &mdash; 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 naming conventions 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.

Renamings and merges
We try to avoid broken links, because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of Wikidoc, 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 reorganisations:
 * Moving away from CamelCase article names
 * Moving away from having homepages in the article namespace
 * Moving away from using subpagesin 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. This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points 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 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 readers'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 links to redirects that aren't broken
Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the link so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly—for instance, if the link is to a misspelling or other unprintworthy redirect, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. 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.-->

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