This is a Wikipedia guideline for placing redirect pages into categories. It is intended to document current practice and suggest best practice in other areas, and indicate where categorization of redirects can be misleading.

Normal ("hard") redirects should be placed in one of several maintenance categories specifically for redirects. This should be done using categorization templates (rcats) such as {{R with Wikidata item}}.

Soft redirects usually should not be categorized by rcats. Use of {{Soft redirect with Wikidata item}} and {{R category with possibilities}} to tag soft-redirected categories are presently the only exceptions.

Redirects are not usually sorted to article categories; exceptions are described below.

One series of templates and categories is used only for redirects. The templates place redirects into the categories. The templates also explain why the redirect exists, for example {{R from merge}} means it was created by a merge or {{R from alternative name}} means that the redirect is an alternative name for the main title.

These categories contain only redirects. They are helpful in keeping track of redirects and further subcategorizing them as needed. They include redirects within the main namespace and in other namespaces. They are often applied using templates, though such categories can also be created and populated directly. This categorization is intended for Wikipedia editors, not readers.

For tables of redirect category templates, grouped both alphanumerically and by function, see Wikipedia:Template index/Redirect pages. For the categorical list of such templates, see Category:Redirect templates. Every redirect category is a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia redirects, which is not meant to contain any redirects directly and is purposely kept empty except for subcategories.

In some situations, placing a redirect in an article category is acceptable and can help users browsing through categories. The following are examples of some of these situations:

Alternative names should not look out of place on a category page. This is often a way to satisfy disagreements over renaming an article when more than one name seems equally valid. The alternative name(s) becomes a redirect and gets categorized the same way as its target. Another example is when a single article covers things known by multiple names, such as a person who is known in multiple fields of endeavour under different names, a merged article about three different newspapers, or a sketch comedy television show whose name exists on Wikipedia as a redirect to the comedy troupe that created it. In such a case, consideration needs to be given to which title should be reflected in an individual category.

Placing such a category on the target article, with the alternative title in pipetext, does not accomplish the desired purpose, because pipetext in a category link only affects how a title is ordered alphabetically, not how it actually appears.

• Examples:
  • A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century is a hoax quotation by the phony author Israel Cohen. The redirect to that article, Israel Cohen (hoax), belongs in Category:Nonexistent people used in hoaxes but the article does not.
  • Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner is an article that covers both the cartoon and its titular characters. Categories that refer to one of the characters, but not both—such as Category:Fictional coyotes, Category:Fictional flightless birds, and Category:Fictional birds—are placed on the appropriate redirects.

The primary function of the category system is to allow readers to browse through articles. The category system is often used like an alphabetical index. It is sometimes helpful for redirects from common alternative names to appear in the index list. Editors should consider whether alternative names should be mixed in with other names, or not. Sometimes an entirely new category is more appropriate (see Categorization of multiple taxonomies below).

Some subtopics of articles have well-known names and, over time, may expand to become separate articles. Many articles cover several topics that have been combined. This can happen following a merge of several related articles. Often there are redirects pointing to these subtopics. These redirects can be categorized. In some cases, the categories for the redirects that point to the subtopics will be different than the categories for the entire article.

• Example of similar categorization:
  • Butterfly vertebrae points to a subsection of Congenital vertebral anomaly – both appear in Category:Dog health.
• Examples of different categorization:
  • Prohibition in Finland (appearing in Category:History of Finland, Category:1932 in Finland, and Category:Prohibition by country) redirects to a subsection of Prohibition (appearing in Category:Prohibition and Category:Alcohol law).

Some articles can be organized by more than one taxonomy. An example of this is the organization of animal and plant articles by common names and binomial name taxonomy. This is possible by categorizing the article one way and categorizing the redirect a different way. In this case, the alternative categorization of the redirect will not appear in the article unless it is manually added.

• Examples:
  • Category:Banksia taxa by common name and Category:Banksia taxa by scientific name.

Some well-organized lists have redirects pointing at their subsections. In such cases, categorization of the redirects can be an alternative way of browsing entries in a long list. It can also provide an alphabetical listing for lists that are not organised alphabetically, such as lists organised in a chronological order. Redirects to sections of minor character lists should generally only be categorized within that fictional setting, and not in the wider fictional categories.

• Examples:
  • Category:EastEnders characters provides a single alphabetical listing of major and minor characters in the soap opera EastEnders. (The redirects for minor characters should not be categorized outside the EastEnders category structure; e.g., not in subcategories of Category:Fictional characters by occupation.

A redirect may be categorized in the same way as for any other page. When it is possible, use redirect category templates (rcats). For clarity, all category links should be added at the end of the page on their own lines, after the redirect target link and rcat(s). Use of a blank line between the redirect target link and all rcats and category links promotes readability of the code.

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from move}}
{{R printworthy}}
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yzz, Xxy}}
[[Category:Aaa]]

The #REDIRECT [[Article title]] must come first, on the top line, and must start from the left margin. [[Category:...]]-type links may be placed on their own lines after the redirect target link. Redirect category (rcat) templates, {{R from...}}, {{R to ...}}, etc., the {{Redirect category shell}} (Rcat shell) template may be placed anywhere after the redirect on another line or lines, preferably the third line for readability. Those are usually placed before (above) content categories and empty lines are left between the types for readability.

The {{DEFAULTSORT:}} magic word can also be placed on redirects, for example, to ensure that a redirect title that begins with a person's given name will be sorted to their surname: {{DEFAULTSORT:Sprat, Jack}}

The {{Redirect category shell}} (Rcat shell) template may be used to group redirect categories. That template automatically senses protection levels and promotes a faster learning curve for new editors. See its documentation page and the comparison page for more information.

The redirect will appear in the specified categories in a style format that is different than non-redirects (by default, redirects appear in italics type, while non-redirects do not – see Technical note below).

Note that in the case of a Module redirect the Rcats should be added to the documentation page like regular categories per WP:CAT#T since adding templates directly to a module without breaking the redirect is impossible.^[a] See this edit for an example.

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz]]

{{Rcat shell|
{{R from former name}}
{{R printworthy}}
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yzz, Xxy}}
[[Category:Aaa]]
[[Category:Bbb]]

#REDIRECT [[Caitlyn Jenner]]

{{Rcat shell|
{{R from birth name}}
{{R printworthy}}
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenner, Bruce}}
[[Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1975 Pan American Games]]
[[Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1976 Summer Olympics]]

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz#Header]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R to section}}
{{R printworthy}}
}}

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz#Header]]

{{Redirect category shell|{{R to section}}{{R printworthy}}}}

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz#Anchor this]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R to anchor}}
{{R unprintworthy}}
}}

#REDIRECT [[Xxy Yzz#Section header]]

{{Rcat shell|
{{R to section}}
{{R to related topic}}
{{R printworthy}}
}}

[[Category:Aaa|{{PAGENAME:Xxy Yzz}}]]
[[Category:Bbb|{{PAGENAME:Xxy Yzz}}]]
[[Category:Ccc|{{PAGENAME:Xxy Yzz}}]]
[[Category:Ddd|{{PAGENAME:Xxy Yzz}}]]

The appearance of a redirect link on category pages and in search results is determined by the CSS class "redirect-in-category" and the specification for that class in MediaWiki:Common.css. By default, this class is set to "italics", although this may be changed by the user. In the past, no distinction was made for users, which fueled the controversies over how to categorize redirects. By displaying them in italics, redirects are easy to pick out. Perfectly good (and in many cases better known) terminology implemented as redirects for technical reasons can now be categorized for the readers to browse, and for editors to know and use as needed.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect/Style guide
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages
• Wikipedia:Printability
• Category:Redirect templates
• Capricorn, a user script to assist in categorizing redirects