 | This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
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| Linking and page manipulation |
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Linking through hyperlinks is an important feature of Wikipedia. Internal links bind the project together into an interconnected whole. Interwikimedia links bind the project to sister projects such as Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikipedia in other languages, and external links bind Wikipedia to the World Wide Web.
Appropriate links provide instant pathways to locations within and outside the project that can increase readers' understanding of the topic at hand. Whenever writing or editing an article, consider not only what to put in the article, but also what links to include to help the reader find related information, and also which other pages should have links to the article. Avoid both underlinking and overlinking, as described below.
This page provides guidelines as to when links should and should not be used, and how to format links. For information about the syntax used to create links, see Help:Link. For links on disambiguation pages, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages.
Principles
Wikipedia is based on hypertext, and aims to "build the web" to enable readers to access relevant information on other Wikipedia pages easily. The page from which the hyperlink is activated is called the anchor; the page the link points to is called the target.
In adding or removing links, consider an article's place in the knowledge tree. Internal links can add to the cohesion and utility of Wikipedia, allowing readers to deepen their understanding of a topic by conveniently accessing other articles. Ask yourself, "How likely is it that the reader will also want to read that other article?" Consider including links where readers might want to use them; for example, in article leads, at the openings of new sections, in the cells of tables, and in file captions. But as a rule of thumb, link only the first occurrence of a term in the text of the article.
General points on linking style
- As explained in more detail at Help:Link § Wikilinks, linking can be direct (
[[Riverside, California]], which results in Riverside, California), or piped ([[Riverside, California|Riverside]], which results in Riverside in the text, but still links to the article "Riverside, California"—although the pipe trick is an easier way to create this particular link). - Section headings should not themselves contain links; instead, a {{main}} or {{see also}} template should be placed immediately after the heading.
- Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead.
- Be conservative when linking within quotations; link only to targets that correspond to the meaning clearly intended by the quote's author. Where possible, link from text outside of the quotation instead – either before it or soon after.
- When possible, do not place links next to each other, to avoid appearing like a single link, as in wingsuit combat (
[[wingsuit]] [[combat]]) or chess tournament ([[chess]] [[tournament]]). Instead, consider rephrasing the sentence (tournament of chess), omitting one of the links (chess tournament), or using a single, more specific link such as chess tournament ([[chess tournament]]). - For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit.
- For example, avoid
![image]()
Sydney, Australia ([[Sydney]], [[Australia]])- or
![image]()
Quothquan, South Lanarkshire, Scotland ([[Quothquan]], [[South Lanarkshire]], [[Scotland]])- or
![image]()
Buffalo, New York, United States ([[Buffalo, New York|Buffalo]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[United States]])
- Instead, use
![image]()
Sydney, Australia ([[Sydney]], Australia)- or
![image]()
Quothquan, South Lanarkshire, Scotland ([[Quothquan]], South Lanarkshire, Scotland)- or
![image]()
Buffalo, New York, United States ([[Buffalo, New York]], United States)
- If the smallest unit is an extant place, but the largest is not, it is preferable to space the links out when feasible, e.g.
Kumrovec, then part of Austria-Hungary
([[Kumrovec]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]]).
- Linked text should avoid leading and trailing spaces. Punctuation, including spaces, should be external to the linked items.
- Articles on technical subjects might demand a higher density of links than general-interest articles, because they are likely to contain more technical terms that general dictionaries are unlikely to explain in context.
- Beware of linking to an article without first confirming that the target article covers the appropriate topic. For example, an article mentioning the physics unit "barn" should link to barn (unit), not barn.
- In articles, do not link to pages outside the article namespace, including draft articles, except in articles about Wikipedia itself (and even in that case with care – see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid).
- Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links: if a highly technical term can be simply explained with very few words, do so.
- Use a link when appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. Users may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links.
- Refrain from implementing colored links that may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text, or color links for purely aesthetic reasons.
Overlinking and underlinking
What generally should be linked
An article is said to be underlinked if unlinked words are needed to aid understanding of the article. In general, links should be created for:
- Relevant connections to the subject of another article that help readers understand the article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events, and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question.
- Articles with relevant information, for example: "see Fourier series for relevant background"
- Articles explaining words of technical terms, jargon or slang expressions or phrases—but you could also give a concise definition instead of or in addition to a link. If there is no appropriate Wikipedia article, an interwikimedia link to Wiktionary could be used.
- Proper names that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers
If you feel that a link is relevant to the topic of the article but does not belong in the body of an article, consider moving it to a "See also" section.
Links may be created to potential articles that do not yet exist (see § Red links). If an article exists on a non-English language Wikipedia but not yet in English, consider a red link that also links to the non-English language article (see Help:Interlanguage links § Inline links).
What generally should not be linked
An article is said to be overlinked if it contains an excessive number of links, making it difficult to identify those likely to aid a reader's understanding.A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from. Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article, words and terms understood by most readers in context are usually not linked. Be conscious of your own demographic biases when determining whether certain terms have this level of recognizability – what is well known in your age group, line of work, or country may be less so for others. Examples include:
- Everyday words (e.g., education, violence, aircraft, river)
- Common occupations (e.g., accountant, politician, actor)
- Common units of measurement, often those relating to time, temperature, length, area, or volume. If both non-metric and metric equivalents are given, as in 5 centimetres (2 in), usually neither unit needs to be linked, because almost all readers understand at least one of the units.
- Dates
- Disambiguation pages should not be linked from articles unless the link is purposeful, such as in a hatnote. Instead, use a piped link to the appropriate article. For example, use
![image]()
[[Moana (character)|Moana]] for the Disney character, which appears as Moana and leads to the intended page—instead of 
![image]()
[[Moana]], which appears identical but leads to a disambiguation page.
In addition, major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked:
- Countries (e.g., Brazil/Brazilian, Canada/Canadian, China/Chinese)
- Geographic features (e.g., the Himalayas, Pacific Ocean, South America)
- Settlements or municipalities (e.g., New Delhi; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario; Southeast Asia)
- Languages (e.g., English, Arabic, Korean, Spanish)
- Nationalities, ethnicities or identities (e.g., British, Japanese, Turkish, African American, Nigerian)
- Religions (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism)
Links may be excessive even if they are informative. For example, because inline links present relatively small tap targets on touchscreen devices, placing several separate inline links close together within a section of text can make navigation more difficult for readers, especially if they have limited dexterity or coordination. Balance readability, information, and accessibility when adding multiple links in one section of text. As of 2024, most stub articles average two links per sentence, or about 10 to 20 links total. Most longer articles average somewhere around one link per 20 words. The lead of an article usually has a greater density of links than later parts of the article.
Do not link to pages that redirect back to the page the link is on (unless the link is to a redirect with possibilities that links to an appropriate section of the current article).
The purpose of linking is to clarify and to provide reasonable navigation opportunities, not to emphasize a particular word. Do not link solely to draw attention to certain words or ideas, or as a mark of respect.
External links normally should not be placed in the body of an article (see Wikipedia:External links).
Duplicate and repeat links
Link a term at most once per major section, at first occurrence. Do not re-link in other sections if not contextually important there. Other mentions may be linked if helpful, such as in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and hatnotes.
Citations stand alone in their usage, so there is no problem with repeating the same link in many citations within an article; e.g. |work=[[The Guardian]].
In glossaries, which are primarily referred to for encyclopedic entries on specific terms rather than read from top to bottom like a regular article, it is usually desirable to repeat links (including to other terms in the glossary) that were not already linked in the same entry .
Duplicate linking in stand-alone and embedded lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader. This is most often the case when the list is presenting information that could just as aptly be formatted in a table, and is expected to be parsed for particular bits of data, not read from top to bottom. If the list is normal article prose that happens to be formatted as a list, treat it as normal article prose.
Duplicate links in an article can be found using the duplinks-alt sidebar tool.
Lead section
Too many links can make the lead hard to read. In technical articles that use uncommon terms, a higher-than-usual link density in the lead section may be necessary. In such cases, try to provide an informal explanation in the lead, avoiding using too many technical terms until later in the article. (See Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable and Wikipedia is not a scientific journal.)
Most Featured Articles contain about 12 to 25 links in the lead, with an average of about 1.5 links per sentence, or one link for every 16 words.
An example article
For example, in the article on supply and demand:
- Almost certainly link "microeconomics" and "general equilibrium theory", as these are technical terms that many readers are unlikely to understand at first sight.
- Consider linking "price" and "goods" only if these common words have technical dimensions that are specifically relevant to the topic.
- Do not link to the "United States", because that is an article on a very broad topic with no direct connection to supply and demand.
- Definitely do not link "wheat", because it is a common term with no particular relationship to the article on supply and demand, beyond its arbitrary use as an example of traded goods in that article.
- Make sure that the links are directed to the correct articles: in this example, you should link goods, not good, which goes to a page on the philosophical concept. Many common dictionary words are ambiguous terms in Wikipedia and linking to them is often unhelpful to readers; "Good" is a surname and the name of albums, companies, etc., and the article title Good (disambiguation) is used to index those.
Link clarity
The article linked to should correspond as closely as possible to the term showing as the link, given the context.
For example, a link to the article Requiem (Mozart) should be clear that it is Mozart's Requiem in particular, rather than requiems in general. The link target and the link label do not have to match exactly, but the link must be as intuitive as possible (see § Intuitiveness).
| Article text | Wikitext | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | When Mozart wrote his Requiem | When Mozart wrote [[Requiem (Mozart)|his Requiem]] | Includes the word "his" to specify |
 | When Mozart wrote his Requiem | When Mozart wrote his [[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] | Only word "Requiem" |
| | Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem | Previn conducted [[Requiem (Mozart)|Mozart's Requiem]] or Previn conducted [[Mozart's Requiem]] | Specifying that it is "Mozart's" |
| | Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem | Previn conducted Mozart's [[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] | Only word "Requiem" |
Link specificity
Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link: it generally contains more focused information, as well as links to more general topics.
| What you type | How it appears | Specificity |
|---|---|---|
[[Icelandic orthography]] | Icelandic orthography | Specific (preferred) |
[[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] orthography | Icelandic orthography | Related but less specific |
Icelandic [[orthography]] | Icelandic orthography | Unspecific |
the [[flag of Tokelau]] | the flag of Tokelau | Specific (preferred) |
the [[flag]] of [[Tokelau]] | the flag of Tokelau | Unspecific |
[[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] | Requiem | Specific (preferred) |
[[Requiem]] | Requiem | Unspecific |
If there is no article about the most specific topic, do one of the following things:
- Consider creating the article yourself.
- If an article on the specific topic does not yet exist, create a redirect page to the article about a more general topic, as described in section § Redirects. For example, if no article yet exists on the song "Sad Statue" from the album Mezmerize, create a new article called Sad Statue that is a redirect to the article Mezmerize.
- If there is no article on a more general topic either, then create a red link, but first, read § Red links below.
When neither a redirect nor a red link appears appropriate, consider linking to a more general article instead.
For example, instead of
(an article which, as of 2023, had never been created),
write
Baroque hairstyles (which provides a link to the Baroque era),
Baroque hairstyles (which provides a link to the article on hairstyle),
Baroque hairstyles (which provides no link at all, and which may be preferable depending on context),
or
hairstyles of the Baroque (which provides separate links to both topics);
however, do not create
Baroque hairstyles as two adjacent links because they may be misinterpreted as linking to a single article on that topic.
Section links
If an existing article has a section specifically about a topic, linking to that section takes the reader directly to the relevant information. Section-linking options are piped links, redirects, and the {{Section link}} template, which also generates the § character.
Avoiding broken section links
A problem can arise if the title of the section is changed for any reason, because this action breaks any incoming section links or excerpts. (If this occurs, incoming links default to the top of the linked article.) The recommended way to prevent this breakage is to use a {{subst:Anchor}} template specifying the section's prior name.
An alternative, supplementary method has been to add a hidden comment to the target section such as <!-- "Quark" links here --> so that someone changing the title of that section can fix the incoming links. This method is weaker, since it puts the workload on the editor seeking to change the section title.
There are some bots aimed to fix broken anchors: cewbot, Dexbot, and FrescoBot.
Techniques
Redirects
Suppose you need to link poodle, and there is no such article yet. You might want to create a redirect from "poodle" to "dog" as follows: Link as usual: She owned a [[poodle]]. When you save or preview this, you see: She owned a . Follow the red link, and you are invited to create a new page for poodle; enter (perhaps) #REDIRECT [[Dog]], so that readers clicking on poodle are taken, for now, to the dog article.
The redirect is better in a case like this than a direct link like [[dog|poodle]], because when an actual poodle article is eventually created (replacing the redirect), readers following the poodle link are taken there automatically without anyone needing to review all the links to dog to see which ones should actually go to poodle.
To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use e.g. {{no redirect|poodle}}. Avoid linking redirects that are self links (WP:SELFRED).
Piped links
Though a wikilink defaults to displaying the title of the target article, it is possible to choose more specific or more appropriate display text for the intended context. This can be done with the use of the pipe character (|). For example, [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] displays as Henry II.
Style
- Plurals and other derived names.
[[apple]]sdisplays as apples, and this is simpler and clearer than[[apple|apples]]. Similarly:[[appeal]]ing,[[hyperlink]]ed,[[red]]dest. Some characters do not work after the link; see Help:Link for more details. - Case sensitivity. Links are not sensitive to initial capitalization, so there is no need to use the pipe character where the case of the initial letter is the only difference between the link text and the target page. (Wikipedia article titles almost always begin with a capital, whereas the linked words in context often do not.) However, links are case-sensitive for all characters after the initial one.
Intuitiveness
Keep piped links as intuitive as possible. Per the principle of least astonishment, make sure that the reader knows what to expect when following a link. You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense.
A link's visible label does not need to match the exact title of the article being linked, such as in [[surgical suture|suture]] or [[Passing (sports)|passed the ball]]. However, avoid "Easter egg" or "submarine" links, which are links that unexpectedly hide relevant information underneath the link's label. For example, do not write:
Richard Feynman was also known for work in [[Parton (particle physics)|particle physics]].
Here readers would see the link displayed as particle physics, not the hidden reference to the page Parton (particle physics), unless they followed the link or inspected the target title e.g. by mousing over it. If a physical copy of the article were printed, or the article saved as an audio file, the reference to the parton model would be lost.
Instead, refer to the separate article with an explicit see also X, or by rephrasing the sentence, as in:
Richard Feynman was also known for work in [[particle physics]], especially the [[Parton (particle physics)|parton]] model.
More words into a link
Sometimes moving other words into the bluelinked text avoids surprise.
For example, in an article on the history of Texas:
In 1845, the Republic of Texas was [[Texas annexation|annexed]] by the United States.
appears as:
In 1845, the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States.
which looks the same as a link to the generic topic of annexation would.
However:
In 1845, the [[Texas annexation|Republic of Texas was annexed]] by the United States.
appears as:
In 1845, the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States.
and is clear that the 1845 annexation of Texas is linked.
Names in names
Do not place a link to a name within another name. For example:
| Write: | [[Columbus Avenue (Boston)|Columbus Avenue]] | → Columbus Avenue |
|---|---|---|
| Do not write: | [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]] Avenue | → Columbus Avenue |
| Write: | [[Feynman diagram]] | → Feynman diagram |
| Do not write: | [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] diagram | → Feynman diagram |
The above applies regardless of whether linking to the full name creates a red link; for example, even if there is no article titled :
| Do not write: | [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Lafayette]] Avenue | → Lafayette Avenue |
|---|
See also § Link clarity.
Piping and redirects
As per WP:NOTBROKEN and § Link specificity above, do not use a piped link where it is possible to use a redirected term that fits well within the scope of the text. For example, the page Papageno is a redirect to the article about Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (since Papageno is a character in The Magic Flute). While editing some other article, you might want to link the term Papageno; here, you might be tempted to avoid the redirect by using a pipe within the link, as in [[The Magic Flute|Papageno]]. Instead, write simply [[Papageno]] and let the system handle the rest. This has two advantages: first, if an article is written later about the more specific subject (in this case, "Papageno", the character), fewer links need to be changed to accommodate the new article; second, it indicates that the article is wanted.
An exception to this rule is when linking to articles in Did you know (DYK) "hooks" on the Main Page, where piping links to prevent readers from seeing a redirect notice is preferable, and the hook is live only for a short time.
Piped links and redirects to sections of articles
As explained above, links to sections can take the reader directly to relevant information.
Piped links
Using piped links to sections avoids the unsightly Article#Section name in the display text.
The format for a piped link is [[Article#Section|name of link]]. For example, to link to the "Culture" subsection of the article Oman, type:
[[Oman#Culture|culture of Oman]],
which displays as culture of Oman. The section name is case-sensitive, unlike article titles which are case insensitive.
Finally, consider adding a hidden comment to the target section so that future editors who edit the title of that section know they must search for and fix all incoming links, for example:
<!-- The article ArticleName links to this section. Should the section's title change, fix now mistargeted wikilinks, or use the {{subst:Anchor|}} template to create an anchor to keep the stability of external incoming links too. -->
A list of incoming wikilinks can be generated using the "What links here" feature. As a general rule, it is preferable, particularly in cases where a section has a large number of backlinks, to use {{subst:Anchor}} in the HTML element of the header.
To link to a section within the same article, one can simply prefix the name of the section header with the pound sign ("#") nested in square brackets, for example ("#"):
[[#Promotion to rook or bishop|§ promotion to a rook or bishop]].
Prefix the label of a wikilink that targets a section header with the section symbol ("§").
Redirects to sections which may become articles
Many topics useful for linking may currently appear only as sections of other Wikipedia articles, but are potentially notable enough to become articles on their own. For example, the article Eastern Anyshire might have a small "History" section, but this does not prevent the article History of Eastern Anyshire being written eventually. A redirect page from such a sub-topic to a general topic may exist already; if not, a redirect can be created when the occasion arises. It is bad practice to create links in article text using the format [[Article#Section]]; navigation then becomes difficult if the section is expanded into a new article. Instead, link using a redirect to the main topic; it costs little and makes improvements easier. Thus:
- In a redirect page named "History of Topic", use
#REDIRECT [[Topic#History]]. - In another article, use
[[history of Topic]]. - Avoid:
[[Topic#History|history of Topic]].
Links to non-English language pages
See Help:Interlanguage links § Inline links.
Links to Wikipedia's categories
Wikipedia has categories of articles; for example, "Phrases". Adding the wikitext [[Category:Phrases]] to an article will add that article to the category "Phrases". (This will not create any visible addition to the body text of the article.)
If you instead want to create a visible link to a category, add a colon in front of the word "Category". For example, [[:Category:Phrases]] creates the link Category:Phrases. As with other links, piping can be used: Phrases.
The {{See also cat}} template can be used instead:
{{See also cat|Phrases}} creates:
Red links
Overlinking in general is a style issue partly because of the undesirable effect upon readability. But if too many blue links is distracting, then a red link is even more so. The unassuming coloration of the text (probably black) is the most productive.
In prose, if it seems that the level of red linking is overlinking, remember that red links have been found to be a driving force that encourages contributions, and then use that fact to balance the perceived stylistic issues of "overlinking" the red links. (Legitimate red links are titles to unfulfilled coverage of topics that do not violate "What Wikipedia is not" policy.) Given a certain number of red links needed, if marking all of them could be overlinking, then just how many should be marked could be a style issue, and just which ones are priority is a helpful contribution.
In lists, overlinking red links can occur when every item on a list is a red link. If the list is uniform, where each item is obviously qualified for an article, a single red link (or blue link) could indicate that. If the list is not uniform, the research effort to mark all possible red links is a risky investment: while red means "approved" status, "black" remains ambiguous, even though it meant "disapproved" after research. Valid requests for the future creation of each title in a list, or in prose, may also be a risky investment when the number of red links could be perceived by other editors as overlinking, and then removed before the investment was fruitful. The removal of massive numbers of red links from an overlinked list is best handled by an editor skilled in the automation of text processing.
Red links can also be removed if they violate policy or the guideline for red links, but otherwise red links do not have an expiration date. If you remain convinced there is overlinking of red links, consider turning some of them blue. The methods to do so are by creating a simple stub, a redirect, or a disambiguation page. All of these require the certainty that the red link was legitimate in the first place, such as the conventions on article titles.
Colored links
In prose, refrain from implementing colored links, as these may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text. See the guides to editing articles for accessibility at contrast and navbox colors.
Checking links as they are created
It's easy to create an erroneous link without realizing it. When adding a new link, it's a good idea to use the "Show preview" button and then (from the preview) open the link in a new browser tab to check that it goes where you intend.
By following naming conventions, an internal link is much more likely to lead to an existing article. When there is not yet an article about the subject, a good link makes it easier to create a correctly named article later.
Specific cases
Linking month-and-day or year
Month-and-day articles (e.g. February 24 and 10 July) and year articles (e.g. 1795, 1955, 2007) should not be linked unless the linked date or year has a significant connection to the subject of the linking article, beyond that of the date itself, so that the linking enhances the reader's understanding of the subject. For example:
- The date (or year) should not be linked in a sentence such as (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little if any content of either June 28 or 2007 pertains to either UNESCO, World Heritage Sites, or the Sydney Opera House.
- The years of birth and death of architect Philip Johnson should not be linked, because little if any content of 1906 or 2005 enhances the reader's understanding of Johnson or his work.
[[Timeline of World War II (1942)|1942]]might be linked from another article about WWII.[[1787 in science|1787]]might be linked from a passage discussing a particular development in the metric system which occurred in that year.
However, in intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s), links to specific month-and-day, month-and year, or year articles are not discouraged.
Commemorative days (Saint Patrick's Day) are not considered month-and-day items for the purposes of the above.
Units of measurement that are not obscure
Generally, a unit should be linked only if it is likely to be obscure to many readers or is itself being discussed. For example, the troy ounce, bushel, hand, candela, knot, mho, or millibarn might be considered obscure even if they are well-known within their field of use. Other units may be obscure in some countries even if well known in others.
External links section
Wikipedia is not a link collection, and an article comprising only links is contrary to what the "what Wikipedia is not" policy dictates.
Syntax
The syntax for referencing a web address is simple. Just enclose it in single brackets with a space between the URL and the text that is displayed when the page is previewed or saved:
[https://www.example.org Text to display]
The text appears as:
- Text to display
The URL must begin with either http:// or https:// (preferring https://, where available), or another common protocol, such as ftp:// or news://. If no protocol is used, the square brackets display normally – [like this] – and can be used in the standard way.
In addition, putting URLs in plain text with no markup automatically produces a link, for example https://www.example.org/ → https://www.example.org/. However, this feature may disappear in a future release. Therefore, in cases where you wish to display the URL because it is intrinsically valuable information, it is better to use the short form of the URL (domain name) as the optional text: [https://www.example.org/ example.org] produces example.org.
Citations templates such as {{cite web}} should not be used in the ==External links== section. External link templates such as {{official website}} are used instead of citation templates.
Link titles
Embedded HTML links within an article are a now-deprecated way to supply a bare URL as a source within an article, by simply enclosing the URL in square brackets, like this: [https://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1650417,00.html] → [1]. However, you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References, Further reading, or External links sections. This is done by supplying descriptive text after the URL, separated by a space and enclosing it all in square brackets.
For example, to add a title to a bare URL such as https://en.wikipedia.org/ (this is rendered as https://en.wikipedia.org/), use the following syntax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/ an open-content encyclopedia] (this is rendered as "an open-content encyclopedia").
Generally, URLs and domain names are ugly and uninformative; it is better for a meaningful title or description to be displayed rather than the URL or domain itself. For example, European Space Agency website is much more reader-friendly than http://www.esa.int/ESA. There may be exceptions where the domain name is well known or is also the company or publication name. When a URL or domain name is given, putting both a plain-English title or description and the URL is often more informative: for example, European Space Agency website, www.esa.int.
If the URL or domain name is displayed, make it as simple as possible; for example, if the index.html is superfluous, remove it (but be sure to check in preview mode first). Many but not all sites can be trimmed of a leading "www."; test it to be sure. Use camel case to make a displayed domain more readable, e.g. WashingtonPost.com versus washingtonpost.com.
The "printable version" of a Wikipedia article displays all URLs in full, including those given a title, so no information is lost.
URLs as embedded (numbered) links
Without the optional text, external references appear as automatically numbered links: For example,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/]
is displayed like this:
- [2]
Numbered links of this type used to be used after the punctuation, like this,[3] with a full citation given in the References section. This style of referencing is now deprecated, because such links are susceptible to link rot. See Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.
Position in article
Embedded links that support information in an article are positioned in the same manner as any other reference in the article, following the usual standards about citation formatting and placement in relation to punctuation.
Links that are not used as sources can be listed in the External links section, like this:
==External links==* [https://...]* [http://...]
As with other top-level headings, two equal signs should be used to mark up the external links heading (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout § Headings). External links should always be the last section in an article. It precedes categories and some kinds of navigation templates.
If there is a dispute on the position of an embedded link, consider organizing alphabetically.
Non-English-language sites
Webpages in English are highly preferred. Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for readers in the following cases:
- When the website is the subject of the article
- When linking to pages with maps, diagrams, photos, tables (explain the key terms with the link, so that people who do not know the language can interpret them)
- When the webpage contains information found on no English-language site of comparable quality, and is used as a citation (or when translations on English-language sites are not authoritative).
If the language is one that most readers could not be expected to recognize, or is for some other reason unclear from the name of the publication or the book or article or page title, consider indicating what language the site is in.
- Example: Koha Jonë, an Albanian-language newspaper from Tirana
- Example: El País, a Spanish-language newspaper from Madrid
You can also indicate the language by putting a language template after the link. This is done using Template:In lang by typing {{In lang|<language code>}}. For example, {{In lang|es}} displays as: (in Spanish). See list of ISO 639 codes.
When using one of the Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 templates, instead of the {{In lang}} template, use the |language= parameter. This parameter accepts language names or language codes; see this list of supported names and codes. (Use of language codes is to be preferred because cs1|2 automatically renders language names in the language of the local Wikipedia.)
File type and size
If the link is not to an HTML or PDF file (the latter is identified automatically by the software with an icon like this: [4]), identify the file type. Useful templates are available: {{DOClink}}, {{RTFlink}}. If a browser plugin is required to view the file, mention that as well. If a link is to a PDF file but doesn't end with .pdf, you can put a #.pdf at the end to flag it as a PDF.
If the link is to a very large page (considering all its elements, including images), a note about that is useful since someone with a slow or expensive connection may decide not to visit it.
Interwiki links
Linking
Using links to wiktionary as an example, interwiki links can take the form of:
[[wikt:article]]which appears as: wikt:article
The pipe symbol suppresses the prefix:
[[wikt:article|]]→ article
Adding text after the pipe allows either the same or a different text (with no prefix):
[[wikt:article|article]]→ article[[wikt:article|Any text]]→ Any text
To avoid reader confusion, inline interlanguage, or interwiki, linking within an article's body text is generally discouraged. Exceptions: Wiktionary and Wikisource entries may be linked inline (e.g. to an unusual word or the text of a document being discussed), and {{Interlanguage link}} template may be helpful to show a red link accompanied by an interlanguage link if no article exists in English Wikipedia.
Floating boxes
Floating boxes for links to articles in other Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wiktionary and Wikiquote can be added using interwiki link sidebar templates, for example {{Wikiquote|Jimmy Wales}}. These display as a shaded box with a logo.
(There is a related set of templates for some free content resources that are not run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Rather than creating a sidebar link, they create text suitable for using as a bulleted entry in an "External links" section. A list of such templates can be found at Wikipedia:List of templates linking to other free content projects.)
Link maintenance
Linking and continual change are both central features of Wikipedia. However, continual change makes linking vulnerable to acquired technical faults, and to the later provision of different information from that which was originally intended. This is true of both "outgoing" links (from an article) and "incoming" links (to an article).
- Outgoing links: These should be checked from time to time for unintended changes that are undesirable. If the opportunity arises to improve their formatting, appropriateness, and focus, this should be done.
- Incoming links: Creating an article turns blue any existing red links to its title. Proper redlinks are created only in the hope that an article will eventually be written. Therefore, when creating an article, it is wise to check "What links here" to identify such redlinks, if any, and that they are appropriate.
Buttons
Buttons should not be used in articles. If the desire is to "navigate" a reader to a new page, taking them away from the current page, a link is preferred. Buttons are used within Wikipedia to trigger an "action", such as or or or .
See also
- Wikipedia:Linking dos and don'ts (information page summarizing the key points of this guideline)
- Help:Interwikimedia links
- Help:Menu/Links
- Template:Dead end
- Template:Dead link
- Template:Underlinked
- Wikipedia:Dead-end pages, pages without internal links
- Wikipedia:Integrate
- Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages
- Wikipedia:Orphan, pages without incoming links
- Wikipedia:Red link
- Wikipedia:Walled garden
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia doesn't use Allwiki, the idea that every single word should be a link
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage, editors dedicated to clearing up the immense backlog of orphaned articles
- User:Tony1/Build your linking skills, a tutorial on high-quality linking with practice questions
- User:Evad37/duplinks-alt, a script to highlight links occuring more than once in an article
Notes
- Many, but not all, articles repeat the article title in bold face in the first line of the article. Linking the article to itself produces boldface text; this practice is discouraged as page moves result in a useless circular link through a redirect. Linking part of the bolded text is also discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding; some readers can miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place.
- If quoting hypertext that includes a Wikipedia link particularly salient to the quote's use, a [link in original] editorial note may be added. [link added] notes should generally be avoided, because if the clarification is needed badly enough to justify disrupting the flow of text, the link is probably not conservative and should be omitted.
- A 2015 study of log data found that "in the English Wikipedia, of all the 800,000 links added ... in February 2015, the majority (66%) were not clicked even a single time in March 2015, and among the rest most links were clicked only very rarely", and that "simply adding more links does not increase the overall number of clicks taken from a page. Instead, links compete with each other for user attention." This was reported in: Paranjape, Ashwin; West, Bob; Leskovec, Jure; Zia, Leila (February 22–25, 2016). "Improving Website Hyperlink Structure Using Server Logs". WSDM'16: Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (PDF). San Francisco: Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/2835776.2835832. ISBN 9781450337168.
- Major sections are generally detailed sections with a level-2 heading, but consensus at an article may determine a lower-level subsection is major, especially when a preceding subsection is especially long, when an article's structure puts most content under level-3 headings with level-2 ones primarily used for thematic grouping, or when a subsection is a link target at which many readers arrive directly.
- The hidden message (
<!-- "Article" links here -->) must be added to the target section with a break between the header and the hidden message, or problems arise. Note the two lines:==Target section==<!-- "Article" links here -->
See MOS:HEADINGS for further information about valid and invalid placement of heading comments. - Academic research has suggested that red links may be a driving force in Wikipedia growth; see: Spinellis, Diomidis; Louridas, Panagiotis (2008). "The collaborative organization of knowledge". Communications of the ACM. 51 (8). Association for Computing Machinery: 68–73. doi:10.1145/1378704.1378720. S2CID 77400.
Most new articles are created shortly after a corresponding reference to them is entered into the system
See also Wikipedia:Inflationary hypothesis of Wikipedia growth.
References
- Dvorak, John C. (April 16, 2002). "Missing Links". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on August 6, 2011. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
- "User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 3". Wikipedia (English ed.). January 30, 2023. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
- "Codex: Wikimedia Design System". Doc.Wikimedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation. 2024. "Components: Button" section.
External links
- The Wikimedia Design Style Guide (Links)
- Silvers, V. L.; Kreiner, D. S. (1997). "The Effects of Pre-existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension". Reading Research and Instruction. 36 (3): 217–223. doi:10.1080/19388079709558240. MASID 3889799.
- Internal link analyzer for automatic detection of redundant links in Wikipedia
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English Wikipedia guideline This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia s Manual of Style It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow though occasional exceptions may apply Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus When in doubt discuss first on the talk page ShortcutsMOS LWP LINKMOS LINKWP MOSLINKManual of Style MoS ContentAccessibility Biography Disambiguation pages Organizing by subject Gender identity Hidden text Infoboxes Linking Self references Words to watchFormattingAbbreviations Capitalization Dates and numbers Pronunciation Spelling Text formatting Titles of worksImagesCaptions Image placement Icons ImagesLayoutLayout Lead section Tables Trivia sectionsListsLists Lists of works Road junctions Stand alone listsBy topic areaLegalLegal TrademarksArtsAnime and manga Comics Film Lyrics and poetry Novels Television Video games Visual arts Writing about fictionMusicMusic Music samples Record charts Stringed instrumentsHistoryBlazons Military historyRegionalSpecific naming conventions Canada China and Chinese Egypt France and French Hawaii India Indonesia Ireland Japan Korea Macedonia Malaysia Pakistan Philippines Poland Singapore Trinidad and TobagoReligionIslam Latter Day SaintsScienceChemistry Compound classes Chemicals References and external links Safety Structure drawing Computer science Mathematics Medicine TaxonomySportsCue sports Snooker Figure skating Terminology Related guidelinesArticle size Article titles Categories lists and navigation templates Categorization Hatnotes Subpages UnderstandabilityOverview Contents TipsvteLinking and page manipulationLinking and diffsURLs Links Orphans Interlanguage links Interwiki linking Shortcuts External links External link icons Plainlinks Link color Colon trick Pipe trick Self links What links here Linksearch Manual of Style on linking Navigation templates Hatnotes Template index for linksDiffs Simplest diff guide Simple diff and link guide Complete diff and link guideCategorizationCategory Categorization guideline Classification Container category FAQ for categorization FAQ for categories Categories lists and navigation templates Categorizing articles about people By year Redirect categories User categories Overcategorization User categories Template index for categoriesMoving and redirectingHow to move a page for beginners Redirects Moving a page Requested moves How to fix cut and paste moves Moving files to Commons Userfication Non admin and admin only moves Template index for moving Template index for redirectsMergingMerging Proposed article mergers Requests for history merge Merge and delete Merge what Delete or merge Template index for merging WikiProject MergeSplittingSplitting Template index for splittingImporting and copyingHow to import articles Requests for page importation Import Export Copying within WikipediaProtectingProtection Protection policy High risk templates Requests for page protection Rough guide to semi protectionAdditionalHow to create a page Your first article Editing Deletion processvte Linking through hyperlinks is an important feature of Wikipedia Internal links bind the project together into an interconnected whole Interwikimedia links bind the project to sister projects such as Wikisource Wiktionary and Wikipedia in other languages and external links bind Wikipedia to the World Wide Web Appropriate links provide instant pathways to locations within and outside the project that can increase readers understanding of the topic at hand Whenever writing or editing an article consider not only what to put in the article but also what links to include to help the reader find related information and also which other pages should have links to the article Avoid both underlinking and overlinking as described below This page provides guidelines as to when links should and should not be used and how to format links For information about the syntax used to create links see Help Link For links on disambiguation pages see Wikipedia Manual of Style Disambiguation pages PrinciplesShortcutsMOS BTWMOS BUILD Wikipedia is based on hypertext and aims to build the web to enable readers to access relevant information on other Wikipedia pages easily The page from which the hyperlink is activated is called the anchor the page the link points to is called the target In adding or removing links consider an article s place in the knowledge tree Internal links can add to the cohesion and utility of Wikipedia allowing readers to deepen their understanding of a topic by conveniently accessing other articles Ask yourself How likely is it that the reader will also want to read that other article Consider including links where readers might want to use them for example in article leads at the openings of new sections in the cells of tables and in file captions But as a rule of thumb link only the first occurrence of a term in the text of the article General points on linking style ShortcutsMOS LINKSTYLEMOS INTERNAL ShortcutMOS HEADINGLINK ShortcutMOS NOLINKQUOTE ShortcutsMOS SOBMOS SEAOFBLUEMOS WINGSUIT ShortcutMOS GEOLINK As explained in more detail at Help Link Wikilinks linking can be direct Riverside California which results in Riverside California or piped Riverside California Riverside which results in Riverside in the text but still links to the article Riverside California although the pipe trick is an easier way to create this particular link Section headings should not themselves contain links instead a main or see also template should be placed immediately after the heading Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead Be conservative when linking within quotations link only to targets that correspond to the meaning clearly intended by the quote s author Where possible link from text outside of the quotation instead either before it or soon after When possible do not place links next to each other to avoid appearing like a single link as in wingsuit combat wingsuit combat or chess tournament chess tournament Instead consider rephrasing the sentence tournament of chess omitting one of the links chess tournament or using a single more specific link such as chess tournament chess tournament For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma separated sequence of two or more territorial units link only the first unit For example avoidN Sydney Australia Sydney Australia or dd N Quothquan South Lanarkshire Scotland Quothquan South Lanarkshire Scotland or dd N Buffalo New York United States Buffalo New York Buffalo New York state New York United States Instead useY Sydney Australia Sydney Australia or dd Y Quothquan South Lanarkshire Scotland Quothquan South Lanarkshire Scotland or dd Y Buffalo New York United States Buffalo New York United States If the smallest unit is an extant place but the largest is not it is preferable to space the links out when feasible e g Kumrovec then part of Austria Hungary Kumrovec then part of Austria Hungary Linked text should avoid leading and trailing spaces Punctuation including spaces should be external to the linked items Articles on technical subjects might demand a higher density of links than general interest articles because they are likely to contain more technical terms that general dictionaries are unlikely to explain in context Beware of linking to an article without first confirming that the target article covers the appropriate topic For example an article mentioning the physics unit barn should link to barn unit not barn ShortcutMOS DRAFTNOLINK In articles do not link to pages outside the article namespace including draft articles except in articles about Wikipedia itself and even in that case with care see Wikipedia Manual of Style Self references to avoid Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links if a highly technical term can be simply explained with very few words do so ShortcutsMOS NOFORCELINKMOS FORCELINK Use a link when appropriate but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links Users may print articles or read offline and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form often without links Refrain from implementing colored links that may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text or color links for purely aesthetic reasons Overlinking and underlinking What generally should be linked ShortcutsMOS ULMOS UNDERLINK An article is said to be underlinked if unlinked words are needed to aid understanding of the article In general links should be created for Relevant connections to the subject of another article that help readers understand the article more fully see the example below This can include people events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one as long as the link is relevant to the article in question Articles with relevant information for example see Fourier series for relevant background Articles explaining words of technical terms jargon or slang expressions or phrases but you could also give a concise definition instead of or in addition to a link If there is no appropriate Wikipedia article an interwikimedia link to Wiktionary could be used Proper names that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers If you feel that a link is relevant to the topic of the article but does not belong in the body of an article consider moving it to a See also section Links may be created to potential articles that do not yet exist see Red links If an article exists on a non English language Wikipedia but not yet in English consider a red link that also links to the non English language article see Help Interlanguage links Inline links What generally should not be linked ShortcutsMOS OLMOS OVERLINK An article is said to be overlinked if it contains an excessive number of links making it difficult to identify those likely to aid a reader s understanding A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you re about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article words and terms understood by most readers in context are usually not linked Be conscious of your own demographic biases when determining whether certain terms have this level of recognizability what is well known in your age group line of work or country may be less so for others Examples include Everyday words e g education violence aircraft river Common occupations e g accountant politician actor Common units of measurement often those relating to time temperature length area or volume If both non metric and metric equivalents are given as in 5 centimetres 2 in usually neither unit needs to be linked because almost all readers understand at least one of the units Dates see Chronological items below Disambiguation pages should not be linked from articles unless the link is purposeful such as in a hatnote Instead use a piped link to the appropriate article For example use Y Moana character Moana for the Disney character which appears as Moana and leads to the intended page instead of N Moana which appears identical but leads to a disambiguation page In addition major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked Countries e g Brazil Brazilian Canada Canadian China Chinese Geographic features e g the Himalayas Pacific Ocean South America Settlements or municipalities e g New Delhi New York City or just New York if the city context is already clear London if the context rules out London Ontario Southeast Asia Languages e g English Arabic Korean Spanish Nationalities ethnicities or identities e g British Japanese Turkish African American Nigerian Religions e g Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism Links may be excessive even if they are informative For example because inline links present relatively small tap targets on touchscreen devices placing several separate inline links close together within a section of text can make navigation more difficult for readers especially if they have limited dexterity or coordination Balance readability information and accessibility when adding multiple links in one section of text As of 2024 most stub articles average two links per sentence or about 10 to 20 links total Most longer articles average somewhere around one link per 20 words The lead of an article usually has a greater density of links than later parts of the article ShortcutsMOS CIRCULARMOS CIRC Do not link to pages that redirect back to the page the link is on unless the link is to a redirect with possibilities that links to an appropriate section of the current article The purpose of linking is to clarify and to provide reasonable navigation opportunities not to emphasize a particular word Do not link solely to draw attention to certain words or ideas or as a mark of respect External links normally should not be placed in the body of an article see Wikipedia External links Duplicate and repeat links ShortcutsMOS REPEATLINKMOS LINKONCEMOS DUPLICATELINKMOS DUPLINKMOS DLMOS REFLINKWP LINKFIRST Link a term at most once per major section at first occurrence Do not re link in other sections if not contextually important there Other mentions may be linked if helpful such as in infoboxes tables image captions footnotes and hatnotes Citations stand alone in their usage so there is no problem with repeating the same link in many citations within an article e g work The Guardian In glossaries which are primarily referred to for encyclopedic entries on specific terms rather than read from top to bottom like a regular article it is usually desirable to repeat links including to other terms in the glossary that were not already linked in the same entry see Template Glossary link Duplicate linking in stand alone and embedded lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader This is most often the case when the list is presenting information that could just as aptly be formatted in a table and is expected to be parsed for particular bits of data not read from top to bottom If the list is normal article prose that happens to be formatted as a list treat it as normal article prose Duplicate links in an article can be found using the duplinks alt sidebar tool Lead section ShortcutMOS LEADLINK Too many links can make the lead hard to read In technical articles that use uncommon terms a higher than usual link density in the lead section may be necessary In such cases try to provide an informal explanation in the lead avoiding using too many technical terms until later in the article See Wikipedia Make technical articles understandable and Wikipedia is not a scientific journal Most Featured Articles contain about 12 to 25 links in the lead with an average of about 1 5 links per sentence or one link for every 16 words An example article ShortcutsMOS LEMOS LINKEXAMPLESMOS EXAMPLELINKSMOS COMMONWORDS For example in the article on supply and demand Almost certainly link microeconomics and general equilibrium theory as these are technical terms that many readers are unlikely to understand at first sight Consider linking price and goods only if these common words have technical dimensions that are specifically relevant to the topic Do not link to the United States because that is an article on a very broad topic with no direct connection to supply and demand Definitely do not link wheat because it is a common term with no particular relationship to the article on supply and demand beyond its arbitrary use as an example of traded goods in that article Make sure that the links are directed to the correct articles in this example you should link goods not good which goes to a page on the philosophical concept Many common dictionary words are ambiguous terms in Wikipedia and linking to them is often unhelpful to readers Good is a surname and the name of albums companies etc and the article title Good disambiguation is used to index those Link clarity ShortcutMOS LINKCLARITY The article linked to should correspond as closely as possible to the term showing as the link given the context For example a link to the article Requiem Mozart should be clear that it is Mozart s Requiem in particular rather than requiems in general The link target and the link label do not have to match exactly but the link must be as intuitive as possible see Intuitiveness Article text Wikitext NoteY When Mozart wrote his Requiem When Mozart wrote span class p span span class nt Requiem Mozart span span class p span his Requiem span class p span Includes the word his to specifyN When Mozart wrote his Requiem When Mozart wrote his span class p span span class nt Requiem Mozart span span class p span Requiem span class p span Only word Requiem Y Previn conducted Mozart s Requiem Previn conducted span class p span span class nt Requiem Mozart span span class p span Mozart s Requiem span class p span or Previn conducted span class p span span class nt Mozart s Requiem span span class p span Specifying that it is Mozart s N Previn conducted Mozart s Requiem Previn conducted Mozart s span class p span span class nt Requiem Mozart span span class p span Requiem span class p span Only word Requiem Link specificity ShortcutMOS SPECIFICLINK Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link it generally contains more focused information as well as links to more general topics What you type How it appears Specificity span class p span span class nt Icelandic orthography span span class p span Icelandic orthography Specific preferred span class p span span class nt Icelandic language span span class p span Icelandic span class p span orthography Icelandic orthography Related but less specificIcelandic span class p span span class nt orthography span span class p span Icelandic orthography Unspecificthe span class p span span class nt flag of Tokelau span span class p span the flag of Tokelau Specific preferred the span class p span span class nt flag span span class p span of span class p span span class nt Tokelau span span class p span the flag of Tokelau Unspecific span class p span span class nt Requiem Mozart span span class p span Requiem span class p span Requiem Specific preferred span class p span span class nt Requiem span span class p span Requiem Unspecific If there is no article about the most specific topic do one of the following things Consider creating the article yourself If an article on the specific topic does not yet exist create a redirect page to the article about a more general topic as described in section Redirects For example if no article yet exists on the song Sad Statue from the album Mezmerize create a new article called Sad Statue that is a redirect to the article Mezmerize If there is no article on a more general topic either then create a red link but first read Red links below When neither a redirect nor a red link appears appropriate consider linking to a more general article instead For example instead of N an article which as of 2023 had never been created write Y Baroque hairstyles which provides a link to the Baroque era Y Baroque hairstyles which provides a link to the article on hairstyle Y Baroque hairstyles which provides no link at all and which may be preferable depending on context or Y hairstyles of the Baroque which provides separate links to both topics however do not create N Baroque hairstyles as two adjacent links because they may be misinterpreted as linking to a single article on that topic Section links ShortcutsMOS SECTIONLINKSMOS SECLINKMOS SL If an existing article has a section specifically about a topic linking to that section takes the reader directly to the relevant information Section linking options are piped links redirects and the a href wiki Template Section link title Template Section link Section link a template which also generates the character Avoiding broken section links ShortcutsMOS RENAMESECTIONMOS BROKENSECTIONLINKS A problem can arise if the title of the section is changed for any reason because this action breaks any incoming section links or excerpts If this occurs incoming links default to the top of the linked article The recommended way to prevent this breakage is to use a a href wiki Template Anchor title Template Anchor subst Anchor a template specifying the section s prior name ShortcutMOS HIDDENLINKADVICE An alternative supplementary method has been to add a hidden comment to the target section such as lt Quark links here gt so that someone changing the title of that section can fix the incoming links This method is weaker since it puts the workload on the editor seeking to change the section title There are some bots aimed to fix broken anchors cewbot Dexbot and FrescoBot TechniquesRedirects ShortcutsMOS RDRMOS REDIR Suppose you need to link poodle and there is no such article yet You might want to create a redirect from poodle to dog as follows Link as usual She owned a poodle When you save or preview this you see She owned a Follow the red link and you are invited to create a new page for poodle enter perhaps REDIRECT Dog so that readers clicking on poodle are taken for now to the dog article The redirect is better in a case like this than a direct link like dog poodle because when an actual poodle article is eventually created replacing the redirect readers following the poodle link are taken there automatically without anyone needing to review all the links to dog to see which ones should actually go to poodle To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect use e g no redirect poodle Avoid linking redirects that are self links WP SELFRED Piped links ShortcutsMOS PIPEMOS PIPEDLINK Though a wikilink defaults to displaying the title of the target article it is possible to choose more specific or more appropriate display text for the intended context This can be done with the use of the pipe character For example Henry II of England Henry II displays as Henry II Style ShortcutMOS PIPESTYLE Plurals and other derived names apple s displays as apples and this is simpler and clearer than apple apples Similarly appeal ing hyperlink ed red dest Some characters do not work after the link see Help Link for more details Case sensitivity Links are not sensitive to initial capitalization so there is no need to use the pipe character where the case of the initial letter is the only difference between the link text and the target page Wikipedia article titles almost always begin with a capital whereas the linked words in context often do not However links are case sensitive for all characters after the initial one Intuitiveness ShortcutsMOS EGGMOS EASTEREGGMOS SUBMARINE Is there anything hidden in here Keep piped links as intuitive as possible Per the principle of least astonishment make sure that the reader knows what to expect when following a link You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense A link s visible label does not need to match the exact title of the article being linked such as in surgical suture suture or Passing sports passed the ball However avoid Easter egg or submarine links which are links that unexpectedly hide relevant information underneath the link s label For example do not write span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 Richard Feynman was also known for work in Parton particle physics particle physics span Here readers would see the link displayed as particle physics not the hidden reference to the page Parton particle physics unless they followed the link or inspected the target title e g by mousing over it If a physical copy of the article were printed or the article saved as an audio file the reference to the parton model would be lost Instead refer to the separate article with an explicit see also X or by rephrasing the sentence as in span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 Richard Feynman was also known for work in particle physics especially the Parton particle physics parton model span More words into a link ShortcutsMOS MORELINKMOS MORELINKWORDS Sometimes moving other words into the bluelinked text avoids surprise For example in an article on the history of Texas span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 In 1845 the Republic of Texas was Texas annexation annexed by the United States span appears as In 1845 the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States which looks the same as a link to the generic topic of annexation would However span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 In 1845 the Texas annexation Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States span appears as In 1845 the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States and is clear that the 1845 annexation of Texas is linked Names in names ShortcutsMOS LINKINNAMEMOS PARTIALNAMELINK Do not place a link to a name within another name For example Write span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 Columbus Avenue Boston Columbus Avenue span Columbus AvenueDo not write span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 Christopher Columbus Columbus Avenue span Columbus AvenueWrite span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 Feynman diagram span Feynman diagramDo not write span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 Richard Feynman Feynman diagram span Feynman diagram The above applies regardless of whether linking to the full name creates a red link for example even if there is no article titled Do not write span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette Lafayette Avenue span Lafayette Avenue See also Link clarity Piping and redirects ShortcutsMOS NOPIPEMOS DYKPIPE As per WP NOTBROKEN and Link specificity above do not use a piped link where it is possible to use a redirected term that fits well within the scope of the text For example the page Papageno is a redirect to the article about Mozart s opera The Magic Flute since Papageno is a character in The Magic Flute While editing some other article you might want to link the term Papageno here you might be tempted to avoid the redirect by using a pipe within the link as in The Magic Flute Papageno Instead write simply Papageno and let the system handle the rest This has two advantages first if an article is written later about the more specific subject in this case Papageno the character fewer links need to be changed to accommodate the new article second it indicates that the article is wanted An exception to this rule is when linking to articles in Did you know DYK hooks on the Main Page where piping links to prevent readers from seeing a redirect notice is preferable and the hook is live only for a short time See also WP Piped link When not to use Piped links and redirects to sections of articles ShortcutMOS SECTLINK As explained above links to sections can take the reader directly to relevant information Piped links Using piped links to sections avoids the unsightly Article Section name in the display text The format for a piped link is span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 Article Section name of link span For example to link to the Culture subsection of the article Oman type span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 Oman Culture culture of Oman span which displays as culture of Oman The section name is case sensitive unlike article titles which are case insensitive Finally consider adding a hidden comment to the target section so that future editors who edit the title of that section know they must search for and fix all incoming links for example lt The article var style padding right 1px ArticleName var links to this section Should the section s title change fix now mistargeted wikilinks or use the subst Anchor template to create an anchor to keep the stability of external incoming links too gt A list of incoming wikilinks can be generated using the What links here feature As a general rule it is preferable particularly in cases where a section has a large number of backlinks to use a href wiki Template Anchor title Template Anchor subst Anchor a in the HTML element of the header To link to a section within the same article one can simply prefix the name of the section header with the pound sign nested in square brackets for example Promotion to rook or bishop promotion to a rook or bishop Prefix the label of a wikilink that targets a section header with the section symbol Redirects to sections which may become articles Many topics useful for linking may currently appear only as sections of other Wikipedia articles but are potentially notable enough to become articles on their own For example the article Eastern Anyshire might have a small History section but this does not prevent the article History of Eastern Anyshire being written eventually A redirect page from such a sub topic to a general topic may exist already if not a redirect can be created when the occasion arises It is bad practice to create links in article text using the format Article Section navigation then becomes difficult if the section is expanded into a new article Instead link using a redirect to the main topic it costs little and makes improvements easier Thus In a redirect page named History of Topic use span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 REDIRECT var style padding right 1px Topic var History span In another article use span class example monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content added 006400 history of var style padding right 1px Topic var span Avoid span class example deprecated content example bad monospaced example mono style font family monospace monospace color var color content removed 8B0000 var style padding right 1px Topic var History history of var style padding right 1px Topic var span Links to non English language pages See Help Interlanguage links Inline links Links to Wikipedia s categories Wikipedia has categories of articles for example Phrases Adding the wikitext Category Phrases to an article will add that article to the category Phrases This will not create any visible addition to the body text of the article If you instead want to create a visible link to a category add a colon in front of the word Category For example Category Phrases creates the link Category Phrases As with other links piping can be used Phrases The See also cat template can be used instead See also cat Phrases creates See also Category Phrases Red links ShortcutsMOS REDLINKSMOS REDLINKMOS RL Overlinking in general is a style issue partly because of the undesirable effect upon readability But if too many blue links is distracting then a red link is even more so The unassuming coloration of the text probably black is the most productive In prose if it seems that the level of red linking is overlinking remember that red links have been found to be a driving force that encourages contributions and then use that fact to balance the perceived stylistic issues of overlinking the red links Legitimate red links are titles to unfulfilled coverage of topics that do not violate What Wikipedia is not policy Given a certain number of red links needed if marking all of them could be overlinking then just how many should be marked could be a style issue and just which ones are priority is a helpful contribution In lists overlinking red links can occur when every item on a list is a red link If the list is uniform where each item is obviously qualified for an article a single red link or blue link could indicate that If the list is not uniform the research effort to mark all possible red links is a risky investment while red means approved status black remains ambiguous even though it meant disapproved after research Valid requests for the future creation of each title in a list or in prose may also be a risky investment when the number of red links could be perceived by other editors as overlinking and then removed before the investment was fruitful The removal of massive numbers of red links from an overlinked list is best handled by an editor skilled in the automation of text processing Red links can also be removed if they violate policy or the guideline for red links but otherwise red links do not have an expiration date If you remain convinced there is overlinking of red links consider turning some of them blue The methods to do so are by creating a simple stub a redirect or a disambiguation page All of these require the certainty that the red link was legitimate in the first place such as the conventions on article titles Colored links In prose refrain from implementing colored links as these may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text See the guides to editing articles for accessibility at contrast and navbox colors Checking links as they are created ShortcutWP TESTLINK It s easy to create an erroneous link without realizing it When adding a new link it s a good idea to use the Show preview button and then from the preview open the link in a new browser tab to check that it goes where you intend By following naming conventions an internal link is much more likely to lead to an existing article When there is not yet an article about the subject a good link makes it easier to create a correctly named article later Specific casesLinking month and day or year ShortcutsWP DATELINKWP YEARLINKWP LINKYEAR Month and day articles e g February 24 and 10 July and year articles e g 1795 1955 2007 should not be linked unless the linked date or year has a significant connection to the subject of the linking article beyond that of the date itself so that the linking enhances the reader s understanding of the subject For example The date or year should not be linked in a sentence such as from Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007 because little if any content of either June 28 or 2007 pertains to either UNESCO World Heritage Sites or the Sydney Opera House The years of birth and death of architect Philip Johnson should not be linked because little if any content of 1906 or 2005 enhances the reader s understanding of Johnson or his work Timeline of World War II 1942 1942 might be linked from another article about WWII 1787 in science 1787 might be linked from a passage discussing a particular development in the metric system which occurred in that year However in intrinsically chronological articles 1789 January and 1940s links to specific month and day month and year or year articles are not discouraged Commemorative days Saint Patrick s Day are not considered month and day items for the purposes of the above Units of measurement that are not obscure Generally a unit should be linked only if it is likely to be obscure to many readers or is itself being discussed For example the troy ounce bushel hand candela knot mho or millibarn might be considered obscure even if they are well known within their field of use Other units may be obscure in some countries even if well known in others External links sectionWikipedia is not a link collection and an article comprising only links is contrary to what the what Wikipedia is not policy dictates Syntax The syntax for referencing a web address is simple Just enclose it in single brackets with a space between the URL and the text that is displayed when the page is previewed or saved https www example org Text to display The text appears as Text to display The URL must begin with either http or https preferring https where available or another common protocol such as ftp or news If no protocol is used the square brackets display normally like this and can be used in the standard way In addition putting URLs in plain text with no markup automatically produces a link for example https www example org https www example org However this feature may disappear in a future release Therefore in cases where you wish to display the URL because it is intrinsically valuable information it is better to use the short form of the URL domain name as the optional text https www example org example org produces example org Citations templates such as a href wiki Template Cite web title Template Cite web cite web a should not be used in the External links section External link templates such as a href wiki Template Official website title Template Official website official website a are used instead of citation templates Link titles Embedded HTML links within an article are a now deprecated way to supply a bare URL as a source within an article by simply enclosing the URL in square brackets like this https www guardian co uk usa story 0 12271 1650417 00 html 1 However you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References Further reading or External links sections This is done by supplying descriptive text after the URL separated by a space and enclosing it all in square brackets For example to add a title to a bare URL such as https en wikipedia org this is rendered as https en wikipedia org use the following syntax https en wikipedia org an open content encyclopedia this is rendered as an open content encyclopedia ShortcutsMOS URLMOS DOMAINNAME Generally URLs and domain names are ugly and uninformative it is better for a meaningful title or description to be displayed rather than the URL or domain itself For example European Space Agency website is much more reader friendly than http www esa int ESA There may be exceptions where the domain name is well known or is also the company or publication name When a URL or domain name is given putting both a plain English title or description and the URL is often more informative for example European Space Agency website www esa int If the URL or domain name is displayed make it as simple as possible for example if the index html is superfluous remove it but be sure to check in preview mode first Many but not all sites can be trimmed of a leading www test it to be sure Use camel case to make a displayed domain more readable e g WashingtonPost com versus washingtonpost com The printable version of a Wikipedia article displays all URLs in full including those given a title so no information is lost URLs as embedded numbered links Without the optional text external references appear as automatically numbered links For example https en wikipedia org is displayed like this 2 Numbered links of this type used to be used after the punctuation like this 3 with a full citation given in the References section This style of referencing is now deprecated because such links are susceptible to link rot See Wikipedia Citing sources and Wikipedia Verifiability for more information Position in article Embedded links that support information in an article are positioned in the same manner as any other reference in the article following the usual standards about citation formatting and placement in relation to punctuation Links that are not used as sources can be listed in the External links section like this External links https http As with other top level headings two equal signs should be used to mark up the external links heading see Wikipedia Manual of Style Layout Headings External links should always be the last section in an article It precedes categories and some kinds of navigation templates If there is a dispute on the position of an embedded link consider organizing alphabetically Non English language sites Webpages in English are highly preferred Linking to non English pages may still be useful for readers in the following cases When the website is the subject of the article When linking to pages with maps diagrams photos tables explain the key terms with the link so that people who do not know the language can interpret them When the webpage contains information found on no English language site of comparable quality and is used as a citation or when translations on English language sites are not authoritative If the language is one that most readers could not be expected to recognize or is for some other reason unclear from the name of the publication or the book or article or page title consider indicating what language the site is in Example Koha Jone an Albanian language newspaper from Tirana Example El Pais a Spanish language newspaper from Madrid You can also indicate the language by putting a language template after the link This is done using Template In lang by typing a href wiki Template In lang title Template In lang In lang a lt var style padding right 1px language code var gt For example a href wiki Template In lang title Template In lang In lang a es displays as in Spanish See list of ISO 639 codes When using one of the Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 templates instead of the In lang template use the language parameter This parameter accepts language names or language codes see this list of supported names and codes Use of language codes is to be preferred because cs1 2 automatically renders language names in the language of the local Wikipedia File type and size If the link is not to an HTML or PDF file the latter is identified automatically by the software with an icon like this 4 identify the file type Useful templates are available DOClink RTFlink If a browser plugin is required to view the file mention that as well If a link is to a PDF file but doesn t end with pdf you can put a pdf at the end to flag it as a PDF If the link is to a very large page considering all its elements including images a note about that is useful since someone with a slow or expensive connection may decide not to visit it Interwiki linksShortcutsMOS IWLMOS INTERWIKIMOS INTERLINK Linking Using links to wiktionary as an example interwiki links can take the form of wikt article which appears as wikt article The pipe symbol suppresses the prefix wikt article article Adding text after the pipe allows either the same or a different text with no prefix wikt article article article wikt article Any text Any text To avoid reader confusion inline interlanguage or interwiki linking within an article s body text is generally discouraged Exceptions Wiktionary and Wikisource entries may be linked inline e g to an unusual word or the text of a document being discussed and Interlanguage link template may be helpful to show a red link accompanied by an interlanguage link if no article exists in English Wikipedia Floating boxes Wikiquote has quotations related to Jimmy Wales Floating boxes for links to articles in other Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wiktionary and Wikiquote can be added using interwiki link sidebar templates for example Wikiquote Jimmy Wales These display as a shaded box with a logo There is a related set of templates for some free content resources that are not run by the Wikimedia Foundation Rather than creating a sidebar link they create text suitable for using as a bulleted entry in an External links section A list of such templates can be found at Wikipedia List of templates linking to other free content projects Link maintenanceLinking and continual change are both central features of Wikipedia However continual change makes linking vulnerable to acquired technical faults and to the later provision of different information from that which was originally intended This is true of both outgoing links from an article and incoming links to an article Outgoing links These should be checked from time to time for unintended changes that are undesirable If the opportunity arises to improve their formatting appropriateness and focus this should be done Incoming links Creating an article turns blue any existing red links to its title Proper redlinks are created only in the hope that an article will eventually be written Therefore when creating an article it is wise to check What links here to identify such redlinks if any and that they are appropriate ButtonsShortcutMOS BUTTONS Buttons should not be used in articles If the desire is to navigate a reader to a new page taking them away from the current page a link is preferred Buttons are used within Wikipedia to trigger an action such as Show preview or Create account or Reply or Ask a question See alsoWikipedia Linking dos and don ts information page summarizing the key points of this guideline Help Interwikimedia links Help Menu Links Template Dead end Template Dead link Template Underlinked Wikipedia Dead end pages pages without internal links Wikipedia Integrate Wikipedia Links to disambiguation pages Wikipedia Orphan pages without incoming links Wikipedia Red link Wikipedia Walled garden Wikipedia What Wikipedia is not Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information Wikipedia Wikipedia doesn t use Allwiki the idea that every single word should be a link Wikipedia WikiProject Orphanage editors dedicated to clearing up the immense backlog of orphaned articles User Tony1 Build your linking skills a tutorial on high quality linking with practice questions User Evad37 duplinks alt a script to highlight links occuring more than once in an articleNotesMany but not all articles repeat the article title in bold face in the first line of the article Linking the article to itself produces boldface text this practice is discouraged as page moves result in a useless circular link through a redirect Linking part of the bolded text is also discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding some readers can miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place If quoting hypertext that includes a Wikipedia link particularly salient to the quote s use a link in original editorial note may be added link added notes should generally be avoided because if the clarification is needed badly enough to justify disrupting the flow of text the link is probably not conservative and should be omitted A 2015 study of log data found that in the English Wikipedia of all the 800 000 links added in February 2015 the majority 66 were not clicked even a single time in March 2015 and among the rest most links were clicked only very rarely and that simply adding more links does not increase the overall number of clicks taken from a page Instead links compete with each other for user attention This was reported in Paranjape Ashwin West Bob Leskovec Jure Zia Leila February 22 25 2016 Improving Website Hyperlink Structure Using Server Logs WSDM 16 Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining PDF San Francisco Association for Computing Machinery doi 10 1145 2835776 2835832 ISBN 9781450337168 Major sections are generally detailed sections with a level 2 heading but consensus at an article may determine a lower level subsection is major especially when a preceding subsection is especially long when an article s structure puts most content under level 3 headings with level 2 ones primarily used for thematic grouping or when a subsection is a link target at which many readers arrive directly The hidden message lt Article links here gt must be added to the target section with a break between the header and the hidden message or problems arise Note the two lines Target section lt Article links here gt See MOS HEADINGS for further information about valid and invalid placement of heading comments Academic research has suggested that red links may be a driving force in Wikipedia growth see Spinellis Diomidis Louridas Panagiotis 2008 The collaborative organization of knowledge Communications of the ACM 51 8 Association for Computing Machinery 68 73 doi 10 1145 1378704 1378720 S2CID 77400 Most new articles are created shortly after a corresponding reference to them is entered into the system See also Wikipedia Inflationary hypothesis of Wikipedia growth ReferencesDvorak John C April 16 2002 Missing Links PC Magazine Archived from the original on August 6 2011 Retrieved August 16 2021 User WhatamIdoing Sandbox 3 Wikipedia English ed January 30 2023 Retrieved August 31 2023 Codex Wikimedia Design System Doc Wikimedia org Wikimedia Foundation 2024 Components Button section External linksThe Wikimedia Design Style Guide Links Silvers V L Kreiner D S 1997 The Effects of Pre existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension Reading Research and Instruction 36 3 217 223 doi 10 1080 19388079709558240 MASID 3889799 Internal link analyzer for automatic detection of redundant links in WikipediavteManual of StyleOverview Contents TipsContentAccessibility Biography Disambiguation pages Organizing by subject area Gender identity Hidden text Infoboxes Linking Self references Words to watchFormattingAbbreviations Capitalization Dates and numbers Pronunciation Spelling Text formatting Titles of worksImagesCaptions Image placement Icons ImagesLayoutLayout Lead section Tables Trivia sectionsListsLists Lists of works Road junctions Stand alone listsBy topic areaLegalLegal TrademarksArtsAnime and manga Comics Film Lyrics and poetry Novels Television Video games Visual arts Writing about fictionMusicMusic Music samples Record charts Stringed instrumentsHistoryBlazons Military historyRegionalSpecific naming conventions Canada China and Chinese France and French Egypt Hawaii India Indonesia Ireland Japan Korea Malaysia Macedonia Pakistan Philippines Poland Singapore Trinidad and TobagoReligionIslam Latter Day SaintsScienceMathematics Medicine Chemistry Compound classes Chemicals References and external links Safety Structure drawing Computer science TaxonomySportsCue sports Snooker Figure skating TerminologyRelated guidelinesArticle size Article titles Categories lists and navigation templates Categorization Hatnotes Subpages UnderstandabilitySearchCategory
