Edit Article

wikiHow to Delete a Redirect on wikiHow

Community Q&A

Redirects are created when a page on wikiHow is either merged or moved so that if someone clicks on a link to the old title on other websites (such as blogs and forum postings) or wikiHow articles, they'll automatically get sent (redirected) to the new title. Sometimes, however, a distinct title gets redirected, which means no one will be able to write an article for that title because it's populated by redirect code. In this case, the redirect should be deleted, but it's important to follow these steps to avoid creating broken links.

Steps

  1. 1
    Make sure the redirected title is distinct. Read the merge policy to understand what makes a wikiHow title distinct. Compare the redirected title to the title it's forwarding to. Generally, if the two titles aren't interchangeable, they are distinct and the redirect should be deleted. If the difference is only in spelling or syntax or some other minor difference, there's no need to delete the redirect.
    • Another time when deleting a redirect is appropriate is if there's a double redirect (where a redirect page forwards to another redirect page). A list of double redirects can be found here.
  2. 2
    Go to the redirect page. This is the way to get to the redirect page without being redirected.
    • Copy and paste https://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=ARTICLE TITLE&redirect=no

      into the URL bar at the top of the page. Replace ARTICLE TITLE with a chosen title.
  3. 3
    Redirect any inbound links.
    • Search for the URL of the old (redirected) title in any major search engine. If many pages link to the old title, deleting the redirect may not be a good idea since wikiHow doesn't want visitors ending up at a page that doesn't exist. In this case, what you can do is replace the redirect code with content. Even if it's basic (a stub) it's better than nothing, and you can link to the other article (what the redirect used to point to) as a Related wikiHow.
  4. 4
    Delete the redirect page. Go to the admin tab (only admins can delete pages) and click on delete. Specify your reason for deleting and submit.
    • Alternatively, if not an admin, you can click the "Edit" button and blank the article.

Community Q&A

Ask a Question
200 characters left
Submit
    If this question (or a similar one) is answered twice in this section, please click here to let us know.

    Example

    You find a page titled "How to Fix a Clock Properly" and you decide to change the title to "How to Fix a Clock". But when you try to move the page, you're told that the page already exists. When you click on the existing page, you see that you're redirected to yet another page: "How to Fix a Watch". Since "How to Fix a Clock" and "How to Fix a Watch" aren't interchangeable, you go to delete that redirect by typing https://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Fix a Clock&redirect=no into your browser. Once there, you make sure all the inbound links are updated, then you delete the page. Now, if someone wants to write a page with the title "How to Fix a Clock" they can!

    Tips

    • Sometimes it's better to redirect the redirect rather than delete it. For example, if you find a redirect going from "How to Change a Dirty Diaper" to "How to Take Care of a Baby," instead of deleting the redirect, simply change the redirect so that it forwards to an existing article that more appropriately addresses the topic, such as "How to Change a Diaper."
    • Sometimes a redirect will be protected. If this is the case, click on the "Unprotect" button under the admin tab if you are an admin. If you are not an admin, you can ask an admin to unprotect the article for you.

    Article Info

    Categories: Pages Needing Attention | Being an Admin | Merging

    In other languages:

    Español: borrar una redirección en wikiHow

    Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 16,998 times.

    Did this article help you?
     
http://www.wikihow.com/Delete-a-Redirect-on-wikiHow
www.wikihow.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-13
152323
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:EJPROETT2CNJYP7NBKDTRL5BVL4VVWKC
<urn:uuid:69739d34-4dac-487e-a70e-d8971e16c44f>
2017-03-28T18:05:59Z
151.101.33.175
sha1:MBZ6MIFPLOSD2JUICZIRYECB2KQB3TLQ
<urn:uuid:c00e2ab6-66a1-4c5c-a6c5-793ba8bebc7d>
http://www.wikihow.com/Delete-a-Redirect-on-wikiHow
response
<urn:uuid:cb44fd83-2321-4baf-8ca2-6be43b8eebc2>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-13
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for March 2017
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf