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Aredirect is a page created so that navigation to a given title takes the reader directly to a different page. A redirect is created using the syntax:
#REDIRECT[[Target]]
...where "target" is the name of the target page. It is also possible to add asection header to make a redirect to a specific section of the target page in the following manner:
#REDIRECT[[Target#Section header]]
The pound/number/hash sign (#) is also used to link topage anchors.
Usually,redirect maintenance categories should also be added.
A page is treated as a redirect page if itswikitext begins with#REDIRECT followed by a validwikilink orinterwikilink. A space is usually left before the link. (Note that some alternative capitalizations of "REDIRECT" are possible.)
Note that a redirect works as intended (takes the reader directly to the target page) only if the link is to an existing normal page (not aspecial page) on the same project (English Wikipedia). In other cases soft redirects are often used – seebelow.
Examples:
#REDIRECT [[France]] (redirects to theFrance article)#REDIRECT [[France#History]] (redirects to the "History" section of theFrance#History article)#REDIRECT [[fr:France]] (appears as a redirect to theFrance article on French Wikipedia, but does not work as a true redirect)Any text appearing after the redirect link is ignored in the display, but may be used to add categories, interwiki links, comments, etc.
Note that the redirect link must be explicit – it cannot containmagic words,templates, etc.
When redirecting to acategory page, prefix the target pagename with a colon to prevent the redirect from showing up in the category. (Redirects from one category page to another should use soft redirects – seebelow.) Redirects toimage pages also require the colon.
If the redirect target is an existing page on English Wikipedia and a reader navigates to the redirect page – bywikilink, the search box, or aURL – the reader is taken directly to the target page. A small notice below the top title (or in a black pop-up box on mobile) indicates that the user arrived via a redirect. For example, if you clickTransportation, you are redirected to theTransport article, and the top of the page looks like:
TransportFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected fromTransportation)
To go to the redirect page itself (to edit it, view its history, etc.), click the link in the "(Redirected from...)" notice.
If the redirect target is a non-existing page (redlink), or aspecial page, or a page in another project, then the redirect is not followed, and the reader sees the display of the redirect page (as illustrated below). If the target is a non-existent section of an existing page, then the redirect will take the reader to the top of the target page.
Chains of redirects are not followed. If titleA redirects toB, andB is itself a redirect page, then a reader navigating toA will see the display of the redirect pageB (as illustrated). SeeDouble redirects. (Bots fix such chains so that each redirect points directly to the final target page.)
A redirect page viewed directly, either in the situations described above, or when theURL used to access the page contains the query parameterredirect=no, looks like this:
TransportationFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Redirect page
(See the actualTransportation redirect page.)
Redirects to articles that begin with a lowercase title, for example the redirect from the page atEbay.com to the article ateBay, will display the target page with a capitalized first letter, even though the article displays the title with a lowercase title. This is because the true title of the target page is actually capitalized — it just appears lowercase because of the use of the magic wordDISPLAYTITLE. (Usually, the template {{Lowercase title}} is used to implement the DISPLAYTITLE magic word for lowercase titles.)
When the redirect target is asection link, following a redirected link should lead to the section or other element identified by the link. Normally the redirected page includes the entire contents of the target page as if the section fragment wasn't specified, and usesJavaScript to jump to the section after the page is loaded. If JavaScript is disabled, this jump does not happen.
When a redirect page is viewed directly without following the target link, the link is shown as an ordinary section link, and works as usual without the use of JavaScript.
Redirects are usually created because readers may search for an article under different names (or editors may wish to link to it from different names). Examples are:
Note that it is not necessary to create redirects from every title an editor may conceivably wish to link to a given page –piped links can be used as an alternative.
A redirect page can be created like any other page (seeCreating a new page). Simply type in the wikitext#REDIRECT [[xxx]], replacing "xxx" with the title of the target page (optionally followed by a "#" sign and the section title).
Make sure that there is no textbefore the #REDIRECT keyword, or the redirect will not work. There is not usually any reason to place any text after the link either, although sometimes categories (or categorizing templates—seeCategorizing redirects), interwiki links (seeInterlanguage links) or HTML comments (<!-- comment -->) are added.
Similarly, any existing page can be edited to turn it into a redirect.
To edit a page that is already a redirect (or to view its history, talk page, etc.), follow the redirect to the target page, then click on the link in the "(Redirected from ...)" notice at the top of the page. This takes you to the redirect page itself. (TheURL for accessing a redirect page without following the redirect contains the query parameterredirect=no.)
Another way to get to a redirect page is to go to the target page, and click "What links here" (in the toolbox on the left of the page). This will show you all thebacklinks to that page, including redirects. Clicking on a redirect in this list will take you to the redirect page, not the target.
Theedit summary box can be left blank; the summary will then be automatically generated stating that the page has been redirected to the given target. (This applies for: a new redirect page; an existing article page turned into a redirect page; and a change to the target of an existing redirect.) The generated summary is overridden if the editor supplies their own summary.
To create a redirect using theVisualEditor:
For redirectingxyz to articleabc, enterxyz here, and type #REDIRECT [[abc]] in the body.
Theredirect maker allows any autoconfirmed user to quickly make a redirect. Add it to your bookmarks bar for easy access to it any time you need to make a redirect.
Administrators can delete redirects in the same way as any other page. Deletion or other potentially controversial treatment of redirects can be proposed by any editor atRedirects for discussion. Please refer to Wikipedia'sdeletion policy for details and instructions.
When a page ismoved (renamed), a redirect is automatically created from the old to the new name, and also one for the corresponding talk page (if that was moved as well).Administrators andpage movers can choose tosuppress creation of the redirect.
If the new page name is occupied by a redirect that has only one edit in its history and targeted to the old page name, it is replaced by the page being moved. If the redirect has more than one history entry, or has a different target page, then the move must be made by an administrator or pagemover.
When a page called fortransclusion is a redirect page, the redirect target is included instead, with the same parameters, without any redirect message. Hence ifTemplate:AFD is redirected toTemplate:Afd, then{{AFD|...}} will have the same effect as{{Afd|...}} As usual,double redirects are not followed.
As an alternative to the normal "hard" redirects (which take the reader directly to the target page), it is possible to create"soft" redirects, which leave the reader on the redirect page, giving them the option of clicking the link to the target page. This is usually done in the following situations:
Soft redirects are created using the templates{{soft redirect}} and{{category redirect}}.
mw-redirect CSS class)