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Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking

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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 origin; 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 both the lead and body of the article (see § Duplicate and repeat links, below).

General points on linking style

Section headings should not themselves contain links; instead, a {{main}} or {{see also}} template should be placed immediately after the heading.

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. (See also § Intuitiveness.)

Articles on highly technical subjects might demand a higher density of links than general-interest articles, because they are likely to contain terminology unfamiliar to the average reader. However, do not use links as a substitute for explanation; if a technical term can be simply explained in a few words, do so. (See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Technical language.)

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.[a]

Do not place links next to each other that appear to be a single link, as in [[chess]] [[tournament]] (chess tournament). Instead, consider using a single and more specific link, such as [[chess tournament]] (chess tournament). If this is not possible, consider omitting one of the links (chess tournament) or rephrasing the sentence (tournament of chess).

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).

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:

Instead, use:

  • checkY Naypyidaw, Myanmar ([[Naypyidaw]], Myanmar)
  • checkY Quothquan, South Lanarkshire, Scotland ([[Quothquan]], South Lanarkshire, Scotland)
  • checkY Buffalo, New York, United States ([[Buffalo, New York]], United States)

If the smallest unit is an extant place, but the largest is a former country or entity, it is acceptable to link both, e.g. Kumrovec, Austria-Hungary. When feasible, it is best to space the links out, e.g. Kumrovec, then part of Austria-Hungary ([[Kumrovec]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]]).[1]

Other points

  • Many, but not all, articles repeat the article title in boldface in the first line. This boldface text should not contain links.[b]
  • Links should not contain leading or trailing spaces within the square brackets, e.g. use [[North America]], not [[ North America ]].
  • Refrain from implementing colored links that may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text, or color links for purely aesthetic reasons.
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • For possessives, [[apple]]'s should be used in preference to [[apple|apple's]] or [[apple's]] (the latter would require a redirect to be created at Apple's), unless the 's is part of the article title (e.g. Jacob's). This also applies to piped links such as [[George Washington|Washington]]'s.[2]

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 § An example article, 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, below). 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.[c] 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 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 of overlinking include:

  • Everyday words (e.g., education, violence, aircraft, river, animation)
  • 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 (see § Units of measurement that are not obscure, below).
  • Dates (see § Linking month-and-day or year, 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 Green tickY[[Moana (character)|Moana]] for the Disney character, which appears as Moana and leads to the intended page—instead of Red XN[[Moana]], which appears identical but leads to this 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)
  • 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 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).

Link a term at most once per major section,[d] 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

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:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or 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.[3]

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.
  • Almost certainly link "Tirukkural", as a text many readers may not have heard of, and "Ibn Taymiyyah" and "David Ricardo", people who many readers may not have heard of, for similar reasons.
  • 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.

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, below).

Article text Wikitext Note
check When Mozart wrote his Requiem When Mozart wrote [[Requiem (Mozart)|his Requiem]] Includes the word "his" to specify
X mark When Mozart wrote his Requiem When Mozart wrote his [[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] Only word "Requiem"
check Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem Previn conducted [[Requiem (Mozart)|Mozart's Requiem]]
or Previn conducted [[Mozart's Requiem]]		 Specifying that it is "Mozart's"
X mark Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem Previn conducted Mozart's [[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] Only word "Requiem"

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]] orthographyIcelandic 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 under § Redirects, below. 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

write

  • checkY Baroque hairstyles (which provides a link to the Baroque era),
  • checkY Baroque hairstyles (which provides a link to the article on hairstyle),
  • checkY Baroque hairstyles (which provides no link at all, and which may be preferable depending on context),

or

however, do not write

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. Avoid displaying the hash (#) character in section links; do not simply write [[foo#bar]], which will render as foo#bar.

Of those three options for linking to sections, redirects are usually the best, for reasons described elsewhere on this page.

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 place the section's prior name inside a {{subst:Anchor}} template, between the opening equal signs (==) and the current section title.

An alternative, supplementary method has been to add a hidden comment to the target section such as <!-- "Quark" links here. -->[e] 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 poodle. 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 (see § Piping and redirects, below).

To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use e.g. {{No redirect|poodle}}. This is never useful in the text of articles.

Avoid linking redirects that are self links per Wikipedia:Redirect § Self-redirects.

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]]s displays as apples, and this is simpler and clearer than [[apple|apples]].[f] Similarly: [[appeal]]ing, [[hyperlink]]ed, etc. Punctuation and non-printing characters are not joined to links; see 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

young child looks under some green plants
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:

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.

Sometimes moving other words into the blue-linked 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:

X markN 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:

checkY 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 Lafayette Avenue (Brooklyn):

Do not write: [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Lafayette]] Avenue→ Lafayette Avenue

Piping and redirects

Per § Link specificity above and Wikipedia:Redirect § Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken, 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 chief 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 Wikipedia:Piped link § When not to use).

As explained above, links to sections can take the reader directly to relevant information.

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, where the first letter is 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 [[Article name]] 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|promotion to a rook or bishop]].

If the label of the wikilink that targets a section is the same as the section name, prefix it with the section symbol ("§") using the {{Section link}} template. For example, {{Section link|#Early life and education}} results in § Early life and education

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]].

See Help:Interlanguage links § Inline links.

The colon trick is used to provide a link to a category, file, or interwiki link without adding the page to the category, displaying the image, or adding the interwiki link to the interlanguage links. It also allows for linking to pages with titles beginning with a recognized external link prefix, such as https://, or with a slash, such as /dev/null. By adding a colon just after the opening double square brackets of the link, the default behaviour of the MediaWiki software will be bypassed and it will appear as a conventional wikilink. For example:

  • [[Category:Help]] would list this page in Category:Help, but [[:Category:Help]] will produce a link to Category:Help.
  • [[File:Wikipedia-logo.png]] would display an image, but [[:File:Wikipedia-logo.png]] will produce a link to File:Wikipedia-logo.png.
  • [[pt:Internet]] will create an interlanguage link, but [[:pt:Internet]] will produce an interwiki link to pt:Internet (in the Portuguese Wikipedia).
  • [[//Hus]] will produce an (invalid) external link wrapped in brackets ("[]"), but [[://Hus]] will produce a link to //Hus.
  • [[/Film]] will produce a link to a subpage /Film in namespaces with subpages enabled, but [[:/Film]] will produce a link to the article /Film.
  • [[Computer]] links to Computer article, but adding a colon like [[:Computer]] makes no difference.

A colon can also be used to transclude a page in mainspace. For example, {{The Beatles}} will transclude Template:The Beatles, but {{:The Beatles}} will transclude the mainspace article The Beatles. This is useful when the mainspace article has been specially formatted to be transcluded in other articles, by using <noinclude> or <includeonly> tags to indicate the portion that should be included when the article is transcluded.

Normally, linking to a user page in an edit summary sends a notification to the user. A colon can be used to escape this behaviour. For example, the edit summary corrected typo by [[User:Example]] will ping User:Example, but corrected typo by [[:User:Example]] will not.