Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)
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Internal links
The use of links to other articles, for example, [[George W. Bush]], is encouraged. Use the links for all words and terms that are relevant to the article.
The purpose of internal links is to allow readers to easily and conveniently follow their curiosity or research to other articles. These links should be included where it is most likely that a reader would want to follow them elsewhere—for example, in article introductions, the beginnings of new sections, table cells, and image captions. Generally, where it is likely that a reader may wish to read about another topic, the reader should not have to hunt for a link elsewhere in the page.
On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:
- more than 10% of the words are contained in links;
- it has more links than lines;
- a link is repeated in the same article (although there may be case for duplicating an important link that is distant from the previous occurrence);
- more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist; or
- low added-value items are linked without reason, e.g., 1995, 1980s and 20th century.
This also applies to tables, considered by themselves.
Where a date contains all three components—day, month and year e.g., [[25 March]] [[2004]]—a link will permit the date preferences of the reader to operate. Both day, month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly. Other chronological items such as simple years (e.g., 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if they are particularly relevant to the topic. For more information, see Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting.
Do not link words in article titles; find other ways to include and then link those words.
Links that follow the Wikipedia naming conventions are much more likely to lead to existing articles, and, if 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, [[English language|English]] for example. Make sure, however, that it is still clear what the link refers to without having to follow the link. When forming plurals, do so thus: [[language]]s. This is clearer to read in wiki form than [[language|languages]] — and easier to type. This syntax is also applicable to adjective constructs such as [[Asia]]n, as well as hyphenated phrases and the like.
Try to link accurately. While editing you can use preview to check a link, and follow it by opening the page in another window. If an article you want to link doesn't yet exist, do a quick search to find out if that is really the case; the article may have a different name than you expect.
A link going straight to the target is preferred over a link relying on a redirect.
As the World Wide Web Consortium says, "Don't say 'click here'; not everyone will be clicking".
Capitalisation: 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.
External links
Wikipedia is not a link collection and an article with only links is actively discouraged.
See also Wikipedia:External links.
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/ en.wikipedia.org] produces en.wikipedia.org.
Link titles
In the References and External links/Further reading sections, you should always add a title to an external link 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.
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:
Such links have a number of problems:
- What the link points at is not apparent.
- If the destination of a link is moved or deleted, it becomes difficult to find that information.
In the References and External links/Further reading sections, such links should be converted to have a link text, or 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.
However, 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, [2] with a full citation given in the References section. See Wikipedia:Cite sources for more information.
Position in article
In most cases, it is preferable to group external links together at the bottom of the article in bullet point format under the heading:
==External links==*[http://*[http://
As with other top-level headers, two equal signs should be used to markup the external links header (see Headings elsewhere in the article).
It is also possible to include an inline URL reference (embedded HTML link) within the body of an article. For example:
One good example of a cooperative online community is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia, an open-content encyclopedia].
is displayed like this:
One good example of a cooperative online community is Wikipedia, an open-content encyclopedia.
This is discouraged. The preferred citation method using embedded links is this:
One good example of a cooperative online community is Wikipedia, an open-content encyclopedia. [3]
If an article has used information from an external webpage or it is to be indicated that more information regarding the article will be available, such as statistics, picture gallery, essays on a website, then such links should be part of the "External links" section at the bottom of the article.
If the external reference to be cited pertains to only a paragraph or a line in the article, and was used as a source, then the use of embedded HTLM links serves as a proper citation. These can be used throughout the article; they are replaced by numbers in increasing order starting from 1. See Wikipedia:Cite sources for more information.
Foreign-language sites
Since this is the English Wikipedia, webpages in English are highly preferred. Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for English-language readers in some cases:
- 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 still interpret them
- for example, if the subject of the article is a Spanish-language newspaper
In such cases indicate what language the site is in. For example:
- El País, a Spanish-language newspaper from Madrid
File type
If the link is not to an HTML file, identify the file type. If a browser plugin is required to view to the file, mention that as well.
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.
