Help:Setting up client-side redirects

It is possible to set up MediaWiki to force client-side redirects (using HTTP 302, "temporary redirect"). Doing this means redirects will be handled by the client's browser instead of by the server. Two methods exist to do this.

Method 1

for MediaWiki 1.9.0)

What?

This piece of code forces all redirects to be done by the client, by issuing them a 302 Temporary Redirect to the new pages specific location.

Why?

A lot of search engines decrease your pages rank if they discover duplicated content. The traditional Redirect method allows a huge amount of duplication, and doesn't redirect as nicely. This also allows you to use images for navigation. Additionally it can be a limitation/annoying to not see the full redirected pages location in the address bar, and having the annoying "Redirected from" link.

Warning: This hack will increase your servers network load somewhat, for 99% of MediaWiki servers this will be negligible, but I wouldn't see Wikipedia doing this mod any time soon!

How?

Open "includes\Article.php" and edit the function "followRedirect()"

Change line 94 (approximately) from "return $rt;" to "return $rt->getFullURL();"

The whole function should now look like this:

        /**
         * @return mixed false, Title of in-wiki target, or string with URL
         */
        function followRedirect() {
                $text = $this->getContent();
                $rt = Title::newFromRedirect( $text );
 
                # process if title object is valid and not special:userlogout
                if( $rt ) {
                        if( $rt->getInterwiki() != '' ) {
                                if( $rt->isLocal() ) {
                                        // Offsite wikis need an HTTP redirect.
                                        //
                                        // This can be hard to reverse and may produce loops,
                                        // so they may be disabled in the site configuration.
 
                                        $source = $this->mTitle->getFullURL( 'redirect=no' );
                                        return $rt->getFullURL( 'rdfrom=' . urlencode( $source ) );
                                }
                        } else {
                                if( $rt->getNamespace() == NS_SPECIAL ) {
                                        // Gotta handle redirects to special pages differently:
                                        // Fill the HTTP response "Location" header and ignore
                                        // the rest of the page we're on.
                                        //
                                        // This can be hard to reverse, so they may be disabled.
 
                                        if( $rt->isSpecial( 'Userlogout' ) ) {
                                                // rolleyes
                                        } else {
                                                return $rt->getFullURL();
                                        }
                                }
                                return $rt->getFullURL();
                        }
                }
 
                // No or invalid redirect
                return false;
        }

Method 2

Since modifying MediaWiki's functions like done in the method mentioned above could break some extensions using them like Polyglot, you should better use the following little extension:

        <?php
        $wgHooks['InitializeArticleMaybeRedirect'][] = 'redirectHook';
 
        function redirectHook($title, $request, &$ignoreRedirect, &$target, &$article)
        {
                if (!$ignoreRedirect && $article->isRedirect()) {
                        if (($target = $article->followRedirect()) instanceof Title) {
                                $target = $target->getFullURL();
                        }
                }
                return true;
        }

It works for all Version since 1.14.0. The Hook InitializeArticleMaybeRedirect was actually introduced in 1.13.0, but the $article parameter used was missing back then. If you're using a version prior to 1.14.0, you could insert the function body directly at the position in includes/Wiki.php, where the hook was placed later, but you really need to know what you're doing then.