Using ambiguous keywords for affiliate work on the internet is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though treat with common sense, and occasional exceptions will apply. When an article title refers to several things, it is necessary to provide links so that readers typing in that title can quickly navigate to the article that interests them. Resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, the term should be a natural title if more than one article or product is being promoted. In other words, distinct paths leading to different articles which could, in principle, have the same title. Example, the word “Mustang” can refer to several different things, including a horse, a plane, or an automobile. Since only one page can have the generic name “Mustang”. There must then be a way to direct the reader to the correct specific article when an ambiguous term is referenced by linking, browsing or searching; this is what is known as unambiguous keywords. In this case it is achieved using Mustang.

Two methods of using ambiguous keywords are:

* ambiguous links: links at the top of an article (hatnotes), that refer the reader to other articles with similar titles or concepts. * ambiguous pages: non-article pages that refer readers to other articles.

Keywords are required for a given word or phrase on which a reader might use the “Go button”, there is more than one article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that appears on hitting “Go” to any of the other possible desired articles.

There are three principal scenarios:

* The page at Mustang is a unambiguous page, leading to all the alternative uses of “Mustang”. * The page at Rice is about one usage, called the primary topic, and there is a hatnote guiding readers to Rice to find the other uses. * The page at Tiger Woods’ is about the primary topic, and there is only one other use. The other use is linked directly using a hat note.

When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered to which the same word(s) may also refer, then that term or phrase should either be used for the title of the article on that topic or redirect to that article. If the primary topic for a term is titled something else by the naming conventions, then a redirect for the term is used. Any article which has primary usage for its title and has other uses should have a unambiguous link at the top, and the ambiguous page should link back to the primary topic. Similarly, any article which has primary usage for a name that redirects to it and has other uses should have a “such-and-such redirects here” link at the top, and the ambiguous page for that name should link back to the primary topic.

Now there is an extended discussion about which article is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no main topic, and that the page should be located at the plain title with no “(disambiguation)”.

You will have some primary topics are redirected to a different article. An example, the primary topic for “Danzig” is the former German city of that name, but that city’s article is titled Gdansk. There also is Danzig a music group name that started in 1987 in Lori, New Jersey. As you see keyword specifics are very important in bringing the traffic to your page, product, or article. If there are three or more topics associated with the same term, then a page should normally be created for that term (in which case disambiguation links may or may not be desirable on the specific topic articles – see below). If only a primary topic and one other topic require disambiguation, then disambiguation links are sufficient, and a disambiguation page is unnecessary. However if there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is used.

For disambiguating specific topic pages by using an unambiguous article title, several options are available:

1. When there is another term (such as Billiards instead of Pool) or more complete name (such as Saturn cars instead of Saturn)that is equally clear and unambiguous, that should be used. 2. A unambiguous word or phrase can be added in parentheses. The word or phrase in parentheses should be: * the generic class (avoid proper nouns, as much as possible) that includes the topic, as in Mustang (Ford automotive), Seal (mammal); or * the subject or context to which the topic applies, as in Union (set theory), Inflation (economics). 3. Rarely, an adjective describing the topic can be used, but it is usually better to rephrase such a title to avoid parentheses. 4. With place-names, if the term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using a comma instead of parentheses, as in Newark, New Jersey (geographic names).

If there are several possible choices for a class or context, use the same phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any. Otherwise, choose the simplest. For example, use “(mythology)” rather than “(mythological figure)”. If there is a choice between using a short phrase and word with context, such as Mathematical analysis and Analysis (mathematics), there is no hard rule about which is preferred. Both may be created, with one redirecting to the other. The phrase in parentheses should be treated just as any other word in a title: normally lowercase, unless it is a proper noun (like a book title) that would appear capitalized even in running text.

Searching for what turns out to be an ambiguous term may not reach the article they expected. Therefore any article with an ambiguous title should contain helpful links to alternative articles or pages, placed at the top of the article. A single ambiguous page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms. Editorial judgment should be used in deciding whether to combine terms in the ways described above. If a combined disambiguation page would be inconveniently long, it may be better to split the different spellings into separate pages.

When combined pages are used, redirects to it should be set up from all the terms involved. The title of a page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term. When a page combines several similar terms, one of them must be selected as the title for the page with the tag added if a primary topic exists for that term; the choice should be made in line with the following principles:

* A word is preferred to an abbreviation, for example Arm (disambiguation) over ARM. * When no word can be formed all capitals is preferred. For example, the disambiguation page for “ddb” is DDB not “Ddb”. * English spelling is preferred to that of non-English languages. * Singulars are preferred to plurals. * The simplest form of the term is preferred to those containing punctuation, diacritics and articles; for example SA is preferred to S.A., and Shadow (disambiguation) is preferred to The Shadow (disambiguation). * The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.

Each page comprises a list (or multiple lists, for multiple senses of the term in question) of similarly-titled links.

* Link to the primary topic (if there is one): * Try to start each entry in the list with a link to the target page. * Each bulleted entry should, in most every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link; including more than one link can confuse the reader. * Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. * Only include related subject articles if the term in question is actually described on the target article.

A page is not a list of dictionary definitions. A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context. A page is not a search index. Do not add a link that merely contains part of the page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion. The descriptions should not be created for subjects whose only articles are on pages of sister projects, even if the page already exists.Do not include references in the pages; pages are not articles. Incorporate references into the articles as needed. Before constructing a new page, determine a specific topic name for all existing pages, and the name for the disambiguation page. Move any page with a conflicting title (i.e., the same exact title) to its more specific name. Use the What links here list for the moved page to update pages that link to that page.

If an article has been moved to make way for the page, use the link list of the moved page to access the redirect page created by the move, and replace that redirect page with the new disambiguation page. Use the new unambiguous page to find and replace any old links in existing pages with a link to the new page. A set index article is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name. A set index article is not a unambiguous page, and need not follow the formatting rules for those pages. A set index article is meant for information as well as navigation: just like a normal list article, it can have metadata and extra information about each entry.

Sometimes there will be a page and a set index article for the same term. Another similar type of page is the multi-stub article. This is a page containing brief, stub-like information about a number of similarly-named topics, such as saints with the same name. Like set index articles, these pages are not subject to the disambiguation style guidelines. A double is a link to a disambiguation page from another disambiguation page. This kind of disambiguation is typically more specific than one with a simplified name. This kind of disambiguation is relatively rare on Wikipedia.

You can have a more specific title that is still ambiguous, but not enough so to call for it should redirect back to the main disambiguation page (or a section of it). This aids navigation, and helps editors to avoid creating new articles under the ambiguous title by accident.Pure ambiguous pages should contain interlanguage links only where a similar problem of disambiguation exists in the target language; that is, they should not point to a single meaning from the list of meanings, but to another disambiguation page.Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.

Use pipe syntax when repairing a link, so that the link does not show the new qualifier. A shorter alternative is to use empty pipe syntax, also known as the pipe trick. This allows editors to leave out the piped alternative. Ambiguous links are periodically checked and repaired, but even if some ambiguous links remain, one of the primary reasons for making a unambiguous page is so that following such links will still be useful to the reader.

There’s tools to facilitate ambiguous link repair in the Python Wikipedia Robot. The bot offers to update links to choices listed on the page. Creating links to ambiguous pages is inaccurate. Links should instead point to a relevant article. The purpose of a disambiguation page is to give a user who has typed an ambiguous term into the search box a list of articles that are likely to be what he or she is looking for. To link to a unambiguous page link to the title that includes the text, even if a redirect – Example, link to the redirect North America (disambiguation) rather than the target page at “North America”. This helps distinguish accidental links to the unambiguous page from intentional ones.

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