Wikipedia:Tip of the day/February 2, 2007

Redirect synonymous topic names

Many topics are naturally referred to by different names. For example, baby and infant mean the same thing. But Wikipedia doesn't have a separate article for each synonym (one article defining babies is enough). Therefore, Wikipedia includes a method for linking synonyms so that they lead to the same article. This is done using redirects.

To create a redirect, start a new page for the synonym and in it put only this:


 * 1) REDIRECT target page

...where the target page is the name of the article the synonym should lead to. When a user clicks on a link with the synonym, he or she is automatically sent to the target page.

Here's another example: Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom also appears under the titles Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth II of England, and even Queen of Australia.

Caveat: do not create redirects when you want to rename a page, because then the history of the page resides at the old title. Use the move tab instead, found at the top of every page, which also moves the history.

Read more: Redirect

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