Help:Creating Redirects

Redirects

A redirect is a page created so that navigation to a given title takes the reader directly to a different page.

How to create a Redirect?

There are two ways to create a redirect:

• automatically, by moving or renaming a page
• manually, by inserting this code #redirect[[Page name]] at the top of a page before the text, where page name would be the name of the page to redirect to .e.g template:helpbox.

Why Create redirects

• Redirects help users find related/relevant articles.
• They also help to prevent other editors from wasting their time creating duplicative articles.
• Redirects point people to an article when they search on a name variant. For example, if a user searches on "CIO", they will automatically be redirected to the Chief Information Officer article. Create redirects for alternate names of organizations and variants of foreign names.
• Redirects are also used to send GCpedians to the "officially titled" page. For example, a page titled with an acronym (i.e. OL) can be redirected to a page with the title spelled out (i.e. GCPEDIA:Official Languages). This means users who search for the acronym and users who search for the full title will end up at exactly the same page.

For more examples, see the list of Redirects on GCpedia.

It is also a good idea to check the "What links here" link (on the left menu of an article) for any article you are going to redirect. You might want to edit those articles to link to the correct article. Avoid using redirects to other redirects, which result in double redirects. Instead, make all redirects go to the correct article.

Redirects are automatic when a page is moved, thus preventing dead links. However, this is often the source of double redirects, so check the redirects when moving a page.