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Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) |
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It has been suggested that CONTEXT and BUILD be merged into this page or section. (Discuss) |
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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. |
Linking is one of the most important features of Wikipedia. It binds the project together into an interconnected whole, and provides instant pathways to locations both within and outside the project that are likely to increase our readers' understanding of the topic at hand. The basic types of link—internal and external, piped and unpiped—are explained on this page in terms of their mechanical aspects and the contexts in which they are used.
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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.
Many articles are underlinked or overlinked. 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:
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.
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:
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.
Automated processes should not 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.
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:
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:
Similarly, use:
not
Piped links should be honest, rather than introducing "subtext". For example, the two sentences:
and
are identical on the surface, but the links imply two opposite readings. In this example, neither link is appropriate.
Linking to subsections can be useful, since it can take the reader immediately to the information that is most focused on the original topic. Links to a subheading on a page are denoted by a # symbol between the page title and the subheading ([[Article#Section|name of link]]). For example, to link to the "Culture" subsection of the Oman article, type [[Oman#Culture|culture of Oman]]. When naming a piped link, think about what the reader will believe the link is about; in this example, the piped section-link should not be named "Oman", because the reader will think that link goes to the general article on Oman.
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. For example, link to "V8 engine" rather than "V8 engine".
An internal link that displays in red points to a page that does not exist by that name. This will be for one of the following reasons:
Thus, many red links point to "buds" from which Wikipedia will grow in the future (Number 1), while others signify fixable problems (Numbers 2 and 3). Because academic research conducted in 2008 has shown that red links are what drives Wikipedia growth,1 it is important not to deal with type #1 red links by simply removing their brackets.
If their color bothers the reader or detracts from reading (one of the more common reasons for readers to remove brackets from red links), the color can be changed in other ways. 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 on the viewer's individual reader settings.
For the other two types of easily-fixable red links, 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".
Wikipedia is not a link collection and an article comprising only links is contrary to the "what Wikipedia is not" policy.
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://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 (host name) as the optional text: [http://www.example.org www.example.org] produces www.example.org.
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.
Without the optional text, external references appear as automatically numbered links: For example,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/]is displayed like this:
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.
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.
Webpages in English are highly preferred. Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for readers in the following cases:
In such cases, indicate what language the site is in. For example:
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 icon templates for a list of these templates and the list of ISO 639 codes.
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.
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.
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.
Wikilinking is not case-sensitive, so editors should generally choose upper or lower case for the initial character of the linked article title or the piped text as would normally apply in the sentence. The same applies for piped external links that occur in running prose.
In general, do not include links in quotations; links can alter the form or emphasis of the original.
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The following section's wording or inclusion in this policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion. Please see the relevant talk page discussion for further information. |
For guidance on the linking of dates, see WP:CONTEXT#Dates. In most cases, date items (days, years, centuries and so on) are not linked. In particular, the day and year links that were formerly recommended to make the autoformatting function work are no longer considered desirable.2
In tables and infoboxes, units should not be internally linked to Wikipedia pages.
One of the commonest errors in linking occurs when editors do not check to see whether a link they have created goes to the intended location. This is especially true when a mistake is not obvious to the reader or to other editors. The text of links needs to be exact, and many Wikipedia destinations have a number of similar titles. To avoid such problems, which can be irritating for readers, the following procedure is recommended, especially for editors who are new to creating links.
By following naming conventions, an internal link will be much more likely to lead to an existing article. When there is not yet an article about the subject, a good link will make the creation of a correctly named article much easier for subsequent writers.
Linking and continual change are both central features of Wikipedia; however, continual change makes linking vulnerable to acquired technical faults and the 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).
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