Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/5


Introduction
Navigating Wikipedia

Namespaces
The different types of pages

Searching pages
Tricks to find what you want

Page histories
See past revisions

Redirects and shortcuts
Redirecting traffic

Useful links
Handy pages for editors

Summary
Review of what you've learned



Redirects

Some pages on Wikipedia are redirects — they don't have any content of their own, but just send you on to another page. For example UK is a redirect to United Kingdom. So, if you type UK in the search box, it will take you directly to the article on the United Kingdom. (There will also be a note below the article title saying "Redirected from UK".)

To create a redirect to a page:

  • Via wiki markup: Click the Redirect icon button and type the destination page or use the code #REDIRECT [[Destination]].
  • Via VisualEditor: Use the   menu and then click  Page settings to choose a destination page.

Shortcuts

Wikipedians often refer to internal Wikipedia pages by shortcut names to make typing quicker. The Wikipedia namespace prefix can also be further abbreviated as WP:. These shortcut pages are just redirects to the target page.

For example, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view can be written as WP:NPOV to link to it, or typed into the search bar. Shortcuts to a page are usually listed in a box in the top right of that page.