Wikipedia:Redirect

For general info on creating redirects see Help:Redirect.

How to make a redirect

To redirect a page (1) to a different page (2), enter the following on the top of page 1.

#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]]

Don't make double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they don't work, create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing.

Double redirects are usually created after a move when old redirects are left unchanged and pointing towards an old name.

Another type of undesirable redirect is a self-redirect: an article that redirects to itself through a redirect.

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]] {{R from other capitalisation}} 

That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below. Note that there must be a space between the end of the redirect code and the template code for this to work properly.

More examples are included below:

What do we use redirects for?

Compare the more complete template list and the corresponding category.

Reason	Usage notes, and text that will be shown	Tag / Category to find articles so tagged
Abbreviations	From an abbreviation: This is a redirect from an abbreviation to a related topic, such as the expansion of the abbreviation. Instead of this template, use {{R from acronym}} for acronyms pronounced as words, such as NATO and RADAR; or Use {{R from initialism}} for those pronounced as letters, such as CIA and HIV; or Use {{R from short name}}, instead, for the initials of a person's name, and other shortenings not typically classed as abbreviations. DSM-IV redirects to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders	{{R from abbreviation}}
Misspellings	From a misspelling: This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error. The correct form is given by the target of the redirect. This redirect is made available to aid searches. Pages that use this link should be updated to link directly to the target without the use of a piped link that hides the correct details. This template tags redirects with a subcategory of the Redirects from incorrect names category, so template {{R from incorrect name}} should not be used with this template. Condoleeza Rice redirects to Condoleezza Rice	{{R from misspelling}} Category:Redirects from misspellings
Other spellings, other punctuation	From an alternative spelling: This is a redirect from a title with an alternative spelling of the target name. Pages that link to this redirect may be updated to link directly to the target page if that results in an improvement of the text. Do not "fix" such links if they are not broken. Also, these links should not be replaced with piped links. There are many more specific templates such as {{R from alternative hyphenation}}, {{R from alternative punctuation}} and {{R from alternative spacing}}. Also see subcategories of Category:Redirects from modifications for other options (capitals, abbreviations, diacritics, plurals, stylizations, transliteration, ligatures, different parts of speech, etc.) colour redirects to color Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera	{{R from alternate spelling}} Category:Redirects from alternate spellings
Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive	From other capitalisation: This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation, or it leads to a title that is associated in some way with the conventional capitalisation of this redirect title. This may help writing, searching and international language issues. If this redirect is an incorrect capitalisation, then {{R from miscapitalisation}} should be used instead, and pages that use this link should be updated to link directly to the target. Miscapitalisations can be tagged in any namespace. Use this rcat to tag only mainspace redirects; when other capitalisations are in other namespaces, use {{R from modification}} instead. Adding a redirect for mixed-capitalisation article titles (e.g., Isle of Wight) allows "Go" to these articles to be case-insensitive. For example, without the redirect Isle of wight a "Go" for "Isle Of wight" or any capitalisation other than exactly 'Isle of Wight' would not find the article Isle of Wight. Why: Articles whose titles contain mixed-capitalisation words (not all initial caps, or not all lower case except the first word) are found via "Go" only by an exact case match. (Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.) Note: "Go" related redirects are needed only if the article title has two or more words and words following the first have different capitalisations. They are not needed, for example, for proper names which are all initial caps. Examples: Natural Selection redirects to Natural selection Redirect Vice chancellor of austria to Vice Chancellor of Austria is needed because the Go search is case-sensitive for mixed-caps titles. Adding this redirect allows the article to be found when a user enters "vice chancellor of austria" or "vice chancellor of Austria" as a Go search. No redirect to Francis Ford Coppola is needed because the "Go" command is case-insensitive for an article whose title is all initial caps. Any capitalisation (e.g. "francis fOrD CoPPola") entered as a "Go" will find the article.	{{R from other capitalisation}} Category:Redirects from other capitalisations
Other names, pseudonyms, nicknames, and synonyms	From an alternative name: This is a redirect from a title that is another name or identity such as an alter ego, a nickname, or a synonym of the target, or of a name associated with the target. This redirect leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for common names to aid searches and writing. It is not necessary to replace these redirected links with a piped link. If this redirect is an incorrect name for the target, then {{R from incorrect name}} should be used instead. Wellie throwing redirects to Wellie wanging Butcher of Kurdistan redirects to Ali Hassan al-Majid Rev. Fred Phelps redirects to Fred Phelps Linear operator redirects to Linear transformation	{{R from alternate name}}
Scientific names	From scientific name of an organism: This is a redirect from a scientific name of an organism (or group of organisms) to a vernacular ("common") name. Heosemys depressa redirects to Arakan Forest Turtle Deuterium oxide redirects to Heavy water 1P/Halley redirects to Comet Halley	{{R from scientific name}} Category:Redirects from scientific names
Scientific names	To scientific name of an organism: This is a redirect from a vernacular ("common") name to the scientific name of an organism (or group of organisms). European shore crab redirects to Carcinus maenas Baking soda redirects to Sodium bicarbonate Alnitak redirects to Zeta Orionis	{{R to scientific name}} Category:Redirects to scientific names
Other languages	From an alternative language: This is a redirect from a page name in an as-yet-undetermined language to a page name in an as-yet-undetermined language. These words may directly translate or they may be related words, names or phrases. This redirect leads to its target in accordance with the naming conventions for titles in other languages and can help writing and searches. The Abduction from the Seraglio redirects to Die Entführung aus dem Serail	{{R from alternate language}}
Accents	From ASCII-only title: This is a redirect from a title in only basic ASCII characters to a title with differences that 1) are non-ASCII symbols, but 2) are not diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, and so forth – use {{R to diacritics}} instead), and also 3) are not ligatures (like æ and Œ – use {{R to ligature}} instead). Kurt Goedel and Kurt Godel redirect to Kurt Gödel	{{R from ASCII}}
Plurals	From the plural form: This is a redirect from a plural noun to its singular form. This redirect link is used for convenience; it is often preferable to add the plural directly after the link (for example, [[link]]s). However, do not replace these redirected links with a simpler link unless the page is updated for another reason (see WP:NOTBROKEN). Use this rcat to tag only mainspace redirects; when plural forms are found in other namespaces, use {{R from modification}} instead. greenhouse gases redirects to greenhouse gas, etc. Note that [[greenhouse gas]]es shows up as greenhouse gases, so it is not usually necessary to redirect plurals. However third-party websites started adding automatic links to wikipedia from their topics (see, e.g., [1]). Many of them follow the opposite naming convention, i.e., topics are named in plural, and the link to wikipedia may land into an empty page, if there is no redirect.	{{R from plural}} Category:Redirects from plurals
Related words	From a related word or phrase: This is a redirect from a word or phrase (term) to a page title that is related in some way. This redirect might be a good search term, or it could be a candidate for a Wiktionary link. Redirects from related words are not properly redirects from alternative spellings of the same word. They are also different from redirects that are subtopics or related topics, because unlike those, a related word or phrase probably does not warrant its own subtopic section in the target page or possess the possibility of ever becoming an article, template, project page, and so forth. Symbiont redirects to Symbiosis	{{R from related word}} Category:Redirects from related words
Sub-topics or closely related topics that should be explained within the text	With possibilities: This is a redirect from a title that is in draft namespace at Draft:Redirect, so please do not create an article from this redirect (unless moving a ready draft here). You are welcome to improve the draft article while it is being considered for inclusion in article namespace. If the draft link is a redirect, then you may boldly turn that redirect into a draft article. The topic described by this title may be more detailed than is currently provided on the target page or in a section of that page. When the target page becomes too large, or for any reason a new page would be an improvement, this redirect may be replaced with an article, template or other project page that is carved out of the target page. See also {{R to section}} and use together with this rcat when appropriate. If the topic of the redirect is not susceptible to expansion, then use other rcats such as {{R to section}} or {{R to list entry}} when appropriate. Since a new page may be created, links to this redirect should not be replaced with a direct link to the target page. To make redirects to this page, use {{R avoided double redirect}}. {{R printworthy}} should be used together with this template when applied to a redirect in mainspace. When used on a template redirect, it will automatically populate Category:Template redirects with possibilities. Distributed denial of service redirects to Denial of service	{{R with possibilities}} Category:Redirects with possibilities
Facilitate disambiguation	To a disambiguation page: This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is intended for use in links from other articles that need to refer to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. Therefore, this template should only appear on a redirect page that has "(disambiguation)" at the end of its title. Ambiguous titles that do not have page names ending with "(disambiguation)" should use {{R from ambiguous term}} instead. For disambiguations that later prove to still be ambiguous (e.g. "(painter)" when there are multiple notable painters by the same name) and which redirect to disambiguation pages, then {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} is the appropriate rcat template. America (disambiguation) redirects to America	{{R to disambiguation page}} Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages
To track statements that date quickly	Template:R for as of As of 2003 redirects to 2003 See Wikipedia:As of for more info.	{{R for as of}}
To redirect to decade article	To a decade: This is a redirect from a year (or years) to to the associated decade article. Years from 1700 to 500 BCE should redirect to the relevant decade per Wikipedia:Timeline standards. Do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page. Individual articles may be created for these years in the future. 1003 BC redirects to 1000s BC	{{R to decade}}
To redirect from a shortcut	From a shortcut: This is a redirect from a shortcut in any namespace to a page in any namespace. Shortcuts are wikilinked on community pages, talk pages, and edit summaries, but not in mainspace articles. WP:CAT redirects to Wikipedia:Category	{{R from shortcut}} Category:Redirects from shortcut
Oldstyle CamelCase links	From a camel case title: This is a redirect from a camel case page name. In the initial versions of Wikipedia, all links had to be "CamelCase", i.e., words that used medial capitals; they are "two-humped" like a Bactrian camel. These are kept as redirects to maintain edit history and to avoid breaking links that may have been made externally. DemocracY redirects to Democracy	{{R from CamelCase}}
links autogenerated from EXIF information	From a file metadata link: This is a redirect from a wikilink created from Exif, XMP or other information (i.e. the "metadata" section on some file description pages) to a more detailed description of the metadata subject that is linked. Since MediaWiki offers only limited control over the targets of these camera-generated links, redirects like this are created to make them useful. WARNING: It might happen that few or no pages link to this redirect. That is because the metadata links are from the File namespace (often Commons) and do not appear in those listings. This redirect is most likely not orphaned! Adobe Photoshop CS Windows redirects to Adobe Photoshop	{{R from EXIF}}
From school microstub to merge location	From a school: This is a redirect from a school article that may have had very little information or did not meet notability criteria. The information from this article may have been merged into a list of schools or an article on the appropriate school district or geographical location. Culler Middle School redirects to Lincoln Public Schools	{{R from school}}

• 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 — 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 wikipedia:naming conventions (precision) 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.

See also: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages which contains a somewhat longer list of available redirect templates

Renamings and merges

We try to avoid broken links because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of Wikipedia, 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 (see User:Tim Starling/Redirects from : to User: for a partial list)
• Moving away from using subpages in 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. See deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion.

This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points: see How do I change a redirect? 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 Wikipedia:Requested moves to request help from an admin in doing that.

Further information: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Moving a page § Moving over a redirect

The major reasons why deletion of redirects is harmful are:

• a redirect may contain non-trivial edit history;
• if a redirect is reasonably old (or is the result of moving a page that has been there for quite some time), then it is possible that its deletion will break incoming links (such links coming from older revisions of Wikipedia pages, from edit summaries, from other Wikimedia projects or from elsewhere on the internet, do not show up in "What links here").

Therefore consider the deletion only of either harmful redirects or of recent ones.

Reasons for deleting

See also: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion § Redirects

You might want to delete a redirect if one or more of the following conditions is met (but note also the exceptions listed below this list):

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 and G3 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 also the existence of namespace aliases such as WP:. Speedy deletion criterion R2 may apply if the target namespace is something other than Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help:, or Portal:.)
7. If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist, it can be immediately deleted under speedy deletion criterion G8. You should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first and that it has not become broken through vandalism.
8. If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name that is not mentioned in the target, it is unlikely to be useful. In particular, redirects in a language other than English 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 the title needs to be freed up to make way for the move. If the move is uncontroversial, tag the redirect for G6 speedy deletion, or alternatively (with the suppressredirect user right; available to page movers and admins), perform a round-robin move. 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.

Reasons for not deleting

However, avoid deleting such redirects if:

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 article text because the linkified misspellings will not appear as broken links; consider tagging the redirect with the {{R from misspelling}} template to assist editors in monitoring these misspellings.
3. They aid searches on certain terms. For example, users who might see the "Keystone State" mentioned somewhere but do not know what that refers to will be able to find out at the Pennsylvania (target) article.
4. Deleting redirects runs the risk of breaking incoming or internal links. 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 (e.g. WolVes) 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. Evidence of usage can be gauged by using the wikishark or pageviews tool on the redirect to see the number of views it gets.
6. The redirect is to a closely related word form, such as a plural form to a singular form.

Neutrality of redirects

Just as article titles using non-neutral language are permitted in some circumstances, so are such redirects. Because redirects are less visible to readers, more latitude is allowed in their names, therefore perceived lack of neutrality in redirect names is 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?

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" 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 if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. Most especially, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[direct|redirect]].

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.

See also

• Wikipedia:Soft redirect
• Wikipedia:How to edit a page
• Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page
• Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion
• Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities
• User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects-project
• Wikipedia:List of interwiki redirects
• Wikipedia:Double redirects (maintenance list for items to be fixed)
• Wikipedia:Redirects to be made
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation