Help:Redirects

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Redirects are used to forward users from one page name to another. They can be useful if a particular article is referred to by multiple names, or has alternative punctuation, capitalization or spellings.

Types of redirects

Two types of redirections exist:

• Hard redirection: Readers navigated to the redirect page are taken directly to the target page (usually other pages of the same wiki). Only hard redirection is described in this current article.
• Soft redirection: Readers are left on the redirect page but given the option of clicking the link to the target page. Usually this is achieved via a template; see corresponding article on Meta.

In wikis with $wgDisableHardRedirects enabled (such as most public Wikimedia projects), it's not possible to create a hard redirect to special pages (e.g. Special:MyLanguage) or pages located on another wiki; they will be automatically "softened".

Appearance

For hard redirects, you immediately get the target page. However, it shows a small notice after the top title to indicate you arrived here indirectly.

Help:Redirects

Creating a redirect

When a page is moved, a redirect from the old to the new pagename is automatically created.

Users with the "suppressredirect" right may move a page without creating a redirect. By default this right is assigned to sysops and bots.

You may start a new page with the name you want to direct from (see Help:Starting a new page ). You can also use an existing page that you are making inactive as a page by going to that page and using the "edit" tab at the top. In either case, you will be inserting the following code at the very first text position of the Edit window for the page:

#REDIRECT [[pagename]]

where pagename is the name of the destination page. The word "redirect" is not case-sensitive, but there must be no space before the "#" symbol. Any text before the code will disable the code and prevent a redirect. Any text or regular content code after the redirect code will be ignored (and should be deleted from an existing page). However, to put or keep the current page name listed in a Category, the usual tag for that category is entered or kept on a line after the redirect code entry.

Redirections can be simple page names or specified using a namespace. They can be suffixed with a section name if you have the corresponding anchor defined on the target page.

Examples of valid operational redirections:

• #REDIRECT[[Help:Magic_words#Page_names]]
• #redirect [[Help:Magic_words#URL_encoded_page_names]]
• #Redirect [[Manual:$wgConf]]
• #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki/fr]] the translated page is imposed

You should 'preview' (using the button below the Edit window, or use Alt+P) to check that you have entered the correct destination page name.

When redirection is valid (and operational) you will see in the previewed text the name of the target you have provided, following a 'next line' icon (image) for example as follows:

↳ Help:Magic words#URL encoded page names

This is what you must get.

When redirection is not valid, the previewed text looks like a numbered list item with the destination page in blue: (it will also be the contents of the redirection page if you save as it is):

1. REDIRECT  pagename

If the pagename as you typed it is not a valid page, it will show in red. If there is no valid destination page, you should not create the redirect.

Limitations

A redirect target cannot depend on a variable, template, or parser function. If that is the case, the browser will not be automatically redirected on visiting the page.

Example of redirection not allowed (not operational):

• #REDIRECT [[{{ll|Help:Magic_words#Page_names}}]] although Special:MyLanguage/Help:Magic_words#Page_names is operational.

JavaScript page redirect

In order to avoid JavaScript functionality from breaking, all JavaScript pages have a different redirect syntax from regular pages. This syntax allows for proper execution of the page by the browser's JavaScript engine, as well as being recognised by MediaWiki as a redirect. To create a JavaScript page redirect, the format that must be used is as follows:

/* #REDIRECT */mw.loader.load( "{{fullurl:Target.js|action=raw&ctype=text/javascript}}" );

Where Target.js is the target page name.

Viewing a redirect

After making a redirect at a page, you can no longer get to that page by using its name or by any link using that name. However, near the top of the destination page, a notice that you have been redirected appears, with the source pagename as an active link to it. Click this to get back to the redirected page, showing the large bent arrow symbol and the destination for the redirect. This adds &redirect=no URL parameter.

Help:Redirection

File:Redirectltr.png Help:Redirect

By doing this, you can do all the things that any wiki page allows. You can go to the associated discussion page to discuss the redirect. You can view the history of the page, including a record of the redirect. You can edit the page if the redirect is wrong, and you can revert to an older version to remove the redirect.

Deleting a redirect

There's generally no need to delete redirects. They do not occupy a significant amount of database space. If a page name is vaguely meaningful, there's no harm, and some benefit, in having it as a redirect to the more relevant or current page.

If want to move a page over a redirect that has only one edit in its history and targeted to the old page name, there is no need to delete the redirect: it is overwritten. If the redirect has more than one history entry, or the redirect target is somewhere else, then it can only be deleted-and-moved by an administrator.

If you do need to delete a redirect, e.g. if the page name is offensive, or you wish to discourage people from referring to a concept by that name, then you simply go to the redirect page as mentioned above, and follow the procedures at Help:Deletion and undeletion .

Problematical redirects

Double redirects

A double redirect is a page redirecting to a page which is itself a redirect, and it will not work. Instead, people will be presented with a view of the next redirect page. This is a deliberate restriction, partly to prevent infinite loops, and partly to keep things simple.

However, you could look out for double redirects and eliminate them by changing them to be 1-step redirects instead. You are most likely to need to do this after a significant page move. Use the "what links here" toolbox link to find double redirects to a particular page, or use Special:DoubleRedirects to find them throughout the whole wiki.

There is an option, $wgFixDoubleRedirects , to automatically fix double redirects with a job queue. However, it tends to aggravate page move vandalism, so it is disabled by default. The __STATICREDIRECT__ magic word can be used to skip the double-redirect fix on a particular page.

Broken redirects

If the target page does not exist, the redirect is broken: redirection will not occur. You may find all broken redirects at Special:BrokenRedirects.

Redirect to a page in the category namespace

To redirect to a category page and prevent the redirect appearing in this category, precede the words "Category" with a colon. Otherwise the redirect page will also be categorized to the category itself.

#REDIRECT [[:Category:Glossary]]

Transcluding a redirect

When a page called for inclusion is a redirect page, the redirect target is included instead, with the same parameters, without any redirect message. A double redirect does not work.

This allows to create several names for the same template.

Links to redirect

An internal link to a redirect page has CSS class mw-redirect. This can be useful to make them stand out, for clean-up work involving bypassing redirects.

See also

• Manual:Redirects
• Template:Soft redirect — for soft redirections.
• Manual:Redirect table
• Manual:$wgMaxRedirects — to allow for multiple consecutive redirects.
• OutputPage::redirect() — for redirecting to arbitrary URLs from within PHP.
• Category:Redirect extensions