Help:Redirects
From Genealogy
When you move a page you create a redirect. So far so good. It redirects automatically.
[edit] Double refirects
If someone then moves the resulting page, that creates a double redirect, and the first one stops working. Anyone who reaches it has to click to go on and find the ultimate target page.
Double redirects are listed at Special:DoubleRedirects. Each entry has three page title links joined like this:
John Langan (1831-?) (Edit) → John Langan (1824-?) → John Langan I (1832-?)
There may be more than one such group each covering part of a set of three or more pages that all have one ultimate target. The above example was one of a set of five lines involving six pages that "redirected", but only one (the "1824" one above) redirected automatically; the other five all had to be edited so that they pointed to the ultimate target.
When you have either:
- checked that there is only one line involved, or
- found the ultimate target of a set
then:
- highlight and copy the ultimate target (the "1832" page in the above example) then
- click the "edit" link near the start of the line and paste the target name into the brackets on the page you reach, in substitution for the link that's there
If you found a set, paste the same target link into the others in the set by successively clicking the "edit" in each line as in step 2 above.