Redirect

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Why redirect a page?

Sometimes a topic will have multiple names or abbreviations, and you will want to direct them all to one page.

For example take the page ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction. The names STEMI, MI, Acute MI, Myocardial Infarction, AMI all are redirected to the page ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

How to make a redirect (redirect command)

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

#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]

For example, to redirect the MI page ( redirecting page ) to the ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction page (target page), edit the MI page and enter:

#REDIRECT [[ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction]]

Undesirable redirects

Don't make (a redirect that points to another redirect); they don't work, they create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, and they 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.

Creating new redirects

You can create a new page in order to make a redirect.

Only the redirect line will be displayed when you save the page.

Be sure to add a line to place the page in a category.

For instance, for MI you would type: [[Category:Cardiac Disease]]

Categories for redirect pages

Redirects should not normally contain categories that would fit on the target page because it can result in duplicate listings of the same page within a category. Relevant categories should be moved to the main page where the redirect is pointing. In some cases, however, adding categories to a redirect page allows legitimate alternative titles or names to be found in category lists. Redirect pages within categories will appear in italics.

Renamings and merges

We try to avoid broken links because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of WikiDoc, or we merge two 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.

What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects?

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:

• ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (redirected from AMI, STEMI, MI, etc)