Editing Help:Section (section)

=== Section linking and redirects ===
A link that specifies a section of a redirect page corresponds to a link to that section of the target of the redirect.

A [[Help:redirect|redirect]] to a section of a page will also work, try e.g. the redirect page [[Help:Section linking and redirects|Section linking and redirects]].

A complication is that, unlike renaming a page, renaming a section does not create any redirect from the old section name. Therefore, incoming links to the old section name will have to be fixed. This problem can be fixed by adding a manual anchor link to the old name, using the [[Template:Anchor|Anchor]] template.

However, if you do not want to retain links to the old names, you will need to track them down and fix them. There is no separate [[Help:What links here|What links here]] feature for sections: the list does not distinguish between links to one section or another and links to the entire page. The following possible workarounds will help "future proof" incoming links you make to a section, but they will not help with tracking down simple links to sections during a rename:
* Instead of linking directly to a section, link to a page that redirects to the section; when the name of the section is changed, just change the redirect target. With this method, pages linking to the section can be identified by using ''What links here'' on the redirect page.
* Use a manual anchor when you wish to link to a section, so that you do not have to rely on the section name being stable.
* Put a [[MOS:COMMENT|comment]] in the wikitext at the start of a section listing pages that link to the section.
* Make the section a separate page/template and either transclude it into, or just link to it from, its parent page; instead of linking to the section one can then link to the separate page.

Redirect pages can be categorized by adding a category tag after the redirect command. In the case that the target of the redirect is a section, this has, to some extent, the effect of categorizing the section: through the redirect, the category page links to the section; however, unless an explicit link is present, the section does not link to the category. On the category page, redirects are displayed with class redirect-in-category, so they can be shown in e.g. italics; this can be defined in [[MediaWiki:Common.css]]. See also [[WP:Categorizing redirects]].