Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)

It has been suggested that CONTEXT and BUILD be merged into this page or section. (Discuss)

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus.

Shortcuts: WP:MOSLINK MOS:LINK

[edit] How to create links

See also: Help:Link

We recommend the following procedure, especially for editors who are new to creating links. After keying in a link:

1. Click on "Show preview".
2. Click on the links to check they go where you intend; if they do not, fix them. If a destination page does not seem to exist, do a quick search to find out whether the article may have a differently worded title or if the subject is included in a section of another article, and adjust the link accordingly.
3. Return to the "Show preview" page using your browser's return button.
4. Click on "Save page".

[edit] Internal links

See also: Wikipedia:Build the web

Items in Wikipedia articles can be linked to other Wikipedia articles that provide information that significantly adds to readers' understanding of the topic. This can be done directly ("[[Ant]]", which results in "Ant"), or through a piped link ("[[Ant|five new species]]", which results in "five new species" in the text, but still links to the article "Ant").

Internal links add to the cohesion and utility of Wikipedia by allowing readers to deepen their understanding of a topic by conveniently accessing other articles. These links should be included where it is most likely that readers might want to use them; for example, in article leads, the beginnings of new sections, table cells, and image captions.

Do not link items in the title or headings.

Do not pipe links in disambiguation pages.

Links to a subheading on a page are denoted by a # symbol between the page title and the subheading. Use a pipe to clean it up. Example Language and Symbols subtitle of "Symbol".

[edit] Overlinking and underlinking

Many articles suffer from underlinking (not having enough links) or overlinking (having too many links). Sometimes one part of an article may be overlinked, while another section may be underlinked. It is important to strike the right balance of links. An article is likely to be considered underlinked if subjects are not linked that are necessary to the understanding of the article. An article may be overlinked if any of the following is true:

• There are links to articles that are not likely to exist or if they did would have little significance in the context of the article;
• Low added-value items are linked without reason—such as, 1995, 1980s, and 20th century.
• Two links are next to each other in the text, so that it looks like one link—such as internal links;
• A link for any single term is excessively repeated in the same article, as in the example of overlinking that follows: "Excessive" typically means more than once for the same term in an article. The purpose of links is to direct the reader to a new spot at a point where the reader is most likely to take a temporary detour due to a need for more information; this is usually on the first occurrence of the term, although the subsequent linking of an important item distant from its previous occurrence in an article may occasionally be appropriate in a table or in a subsection to which readers may jump directly, either within the article or via a section-link from another article.

[edit] Form

Links that follow the Wikipedia naming conventions are much more likely to lead to existing articles. When there is not yet an article about that subject, good links will make the creation of a correctly named article much easier for later writers.

It is possible to link words that are not exactly the same as the linked article title—for example, [[Henry II of England|Henry II]]. However, make sure that it is still clear what the link refers to without having to follow the link.

When forming plurals, do so thus: [[greengage]]s. This is clearer to read in wiki form than [[greengage|greengages]]—and easier to type. This syntax is also applicable to adjective constructs such as [[Moldova]]n and the like. Hyphens and apostrophes must be included in the link to show as part of the same word. For example [[Jane's Fighting Ships|Jane's]] or [[truant|playing-the-hop]]. Keeping possessive apostrophes inside the link, where possible, makes for more readable text and source, though either form is acceptable for possessive forms of links such as [[George Washington]]'s or [[George Washington|George Washington's]].

Links are not sensitive to initial capitalization (see below), so pipe-linking to fix a capitalization problem should never be necessary. Rather, it is most simple to directly use the form that is most readable in the clear text.

[edit] Context

Main article: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context, even where the target is a simple redirect to a less specific page. Do not use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. This assists in determining when a significant number of references to redirected links warrant more detailed articles.

For example, link to "V8 engine" rather than "V8 engine".

Automated processes should not replace or pipe links to redirects. Instead, the link should always be examined in context.

(For more information, see Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken, and Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities.)

[edit] Red (internal) links

Main article: Wikipedia:Red link

An internal link which shows up in red is one that points to a page that does not exist by that name. This may be because an article has not yet been created there; or because there is a misspelling or plural left inside the link brackets; or because an article on that topic has a different title and needs a redirect; or (even more commonly) an easy and intuitive piped link. An example would be red link, which can be easily changed via piped link to the correct red link. If a red link is within the context of the article, and it is a topic with the potential to eventually be a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia article, then the link should be kept as an invitation for an editor to begin the appropriate article with this title. Such links do not have an expiration date, beyond which they must be "fixed".

In short, many red links signify fixable problems, but others merely point to "buds" from which Wikipedia will grow in the future.

See the main article above for the guideline on these links.

Note that the color of such links depends on the settings of the individual Wikipedia reader, and red is only the default; a reader can change his or her personal style so this internal link class shows up in another color.

[edit] Dates

Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

The use of full date formatting is now deprecated. This refers to the system by which a date containing day, month, and year ([[25 March]] [[2004]]) or day and month ([[February 10]]) permits Wikipedians who are logged in and have selected to see the format they have pre-set in their preferences.

Avoid piping links from "year" to "year something" or "something year" (e.g., [[1991 in music|1991]]) in the main prose of an article in most cases. Use an explicit cross-reference, e.g. ''(see [[1991 in music]])'', if it is appropriate to link a year to such an article at all. However, piped links may be useful:

• in places where compact presentation is important (some tables, infoboxes and lists); and
• in the main prose of articles in which such links are used heavily, as is often the case with sports biographies that link to numerous season articles.

In tables and infoboxes, units should not be internally linked to Wikipedia pages.

[edit] Capitalization

There is currently no rule prescribing whether one should write "See also Train" or "See also train" (and similar with a bulleted list), but in the case of multiple links, be consistent. Note again that that linking does not ever force use of an initial capital letter, so you can leave the initial letter lower case if you so desire, in the interest of readability.

[edit] Quotation

In general, do not include links in quotations; links can alter the form or emphasis of the original. Dates should never be linked in quoted material, because this will cause the quotation to be altered according to readers’ date-formatting preferences.

[edit] Intuitiveness

Keep piped links as intuitive as possible. Do not use piped links to create "easter egg links", that require the reader to follow them before understanding what's going on. Also remember that there are people who print the articles. For example, do not write this:

...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few [[Thomas Bowdler|exceptions]]) back in to stay.

The readers will not see the hidden reference to Thomas Bowdler unless they click or hover over the piped exceptions link—in a print version, there is no link to select, and the reference is lost. Instead, reference the article explicitly by using a "see also" or by rephrasing:

...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few exceptions; see [[Thomas Bowdler]]) back in to stay.

...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were back in to stay, [[Thomas Bowdler]] being an exception.

Similarly, use:

After an earlier disaster (see Bombay Explosion (1944)),...

"After the earlier explosion in Bombay,...

not

After an earlier disaster,...

[edit] External links

Main article: Wikipedia:External links

Wikipedia is not a link collection and an article with only links is contrary to the "what Wikipedia is not" policy.

[edit] Syntax

The syntax for referencing a URL is simple. Just enclose it in single brackets:

[URL link title after space]

The URL must begin with http:// or another common protocol, such as ftp:// or news://.

In addition, putting URLs in plain text with no markup automatically produces a link, for example http://en.wikipedia.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 (host name) as the optional text: [http://en.wikipedia.org/ external link A] produces external link A.

[edit] Link titles

Main article: Wikipedia:Embedded citations

You should not add a descriptive title to an embedded HTML link within an article. Instead, when giving an embedded link as a source within an article, simply enclose the URL in square brackets, like this: [1]. However, you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References, Further reading, or External links section. 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/ (this is rendered as "http://en.wikipedia.org/"), use the following syntax: [http://en.wikipedia.org/ an open-content encyclopedia] (this is rendered as "an open-content encyclopedia").

Generally, URLs are ugly and uninformative; it is better for a meaningful title to be displayed rather than the URL itself. For example, "European Space Agency website" is much more reader-friendly than "http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html". There may be exceptions where the URL is well known or is the company name. In this case, putting both the url and a valid title will be more informative: for example, "European Space Agency website, www.esa.int".

If the URL 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).

The "printable version" of a page displays all URLs in full, including those given a title, so no information is lost.

[edit] URLs as embedded (numbered) links

Without the optional text, external references appear as automatically numbered links: For example,

[http://en.wikipedia.org/]

is displayed like this:

[2]

When an embedded HTML link is used to provide an inline source in an article, a numbered link should be used after the punctuation, like this, [3] with a full citation given in the References section. See Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.

When placed in the References and External links sections, these links should be expanded with link text, and preferably a full citation, including the name of the article, the author, the journal or newspaper the article appeared in, the date it was published, and the date retrieved.

[edit] Position in article

Embedded links are positioned after the sentence or paragraph they are being used as a source for, and after the punctuation, like this. [4]

A full citation should then be added to the References section. Links not used as sources can be listed in the External links section:

==External links==

*[http://

*[http://

As with other top-level headings, two equal signs should be used to mark up the external links heading (see Headings elsewhere in the article).

If there is a dispute on the position of an embedded link, consider organizing alphabetically.

See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Embedded links for how to format these, and Wikipedia:Verifiability, which is policy.

[edit] 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 key or authoritative information found on no English-language site and is used as a citation (or when translations on English-language sites are not authoritative).

In such cases, indicate what language the site is in. For example:

• El País, a Spanish-language newspaper from Madrid

You can also indicate the language by putting a language icon after the link. This is done using Template:Languageicon by typing {{Languageicon|<language code>|<language name>}}. Alternatively, type {{xx icon}}, where xx is the language code. See Category:Language icons for a list of these templates and the list of ISO 639 codes.

[edit] File type

If the link is not to an HTML file, identify the file type. Useful templates are available: {{PDFlink}}, {{DOClink}}, {{RTFlink}}. If a browser plugin is required to view to the file, mention that as well.

[edit] File size

If the link is to a large file (in the case of HTML, including the images), a note about that is useful. Someone with a slow connection may decide not to use it.

[edit] Alternative styles of link

Links to articles in other Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wiktionary and Wikiquote can be done with special link templates such as Template:Wikiquote. These will display as a blue box with a logo. Similar templates exist for some free content resources that are not run by the Wikimedia Foundation. These boxes are formatted in light green to distinguish them from Wikipedia's official sister projects. A list of such templates can be found at Wikipedia:List of templates linking to other free content projects.