Revision as of 09:52, 28 June 2009

A Redirect causes a user to be diverted to another page.

For example, if you wanted to direct all users from the article Swirve to OMAC, at the top of the Swirve page you would insert -

  #REDIRECT [[OMAC]]

Also ensure that the page Swirve does not contain any other content other than the one line of code above.

Create a Redirect Command

Redirecting to a Page

To redirect page A (the redirecting page) to a different page B (the target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of the redirecting page:

#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]

• Check your spelling
• Make sure Article name is capitalized exactly like the main article

Redirecting to a Section in a Page

You can also redirect to sections within an article.

#REDIRECT [[ARTICLE B#SectionName]]

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.

A redirect to a non-existent section – perhaps due to a misspelling or name change, will simply lead to the top of the target article.

Undesirable redirects

Double redirects

A double redirect is a redirect which points to another redirect. Avoid making them; they do not work (to prevent endless looping, a redirect will not "pass through" more than one entry).

If you move or rename a page, it is best to click on What Links Here to see if any redirects exist, and to change them to redirect straight to the new title.

Self-redirect

A self-redirect is a title that redirects straight to the page on which the link is found. This may occur if a redirect is created from a red link on the page, or if the title once was an article of its own but was merged.

An exception is a redirect to a section within the article, especially in a long article that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen.

Nonfunctional redirects

Redirects to other Wikimedia projects, other websites, or special pages do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a soft redirect template.