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:External links - Misplaced Pages

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This guideline is a part of the English Misplaced Pages'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.		Shortcut
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Related guidelines

Misplaced Pages is not a web directory; no page should be dominated by or consist solely of a collection of external links. It is always preferred to use internal links over external links. However, a small number of highly relevant external links to further information can enhance an article. This guideline assists editors in identifying what is and isn't a "highly relevant" link.

What to link to

In Misplaced Pages, it is possible to link to external websites. Such links are referred to as "external links". Many articles have a small section containing a few external links. There are a few things which should be considered when adding an external link.

  • Is it accessible?
  • Is it proper (useful, tasteful, etc.)?
  • Is it entered correctly?
  • Is the link, in the context used, likely to have a substantive longevity? For example, it is not useful to link to a homepage that changes often and merely happens to have a relevant picture or article on its front page at the moment. Similarly, be very wary of citing an unstable page as a source.

What should be linked to

  1. Sites that have been used as references in the creation of an article should be linked to in a references section, not in external links. See Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:Citing sources. Sources available in both web and print editions should have a citation for the print edition as well as a link.
  2. Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if there is one. An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a copy if none of the "Links normally to be avoided" criteria apply.
  3. On articles with multiple points of view, a link to prominent sites dedicated to each, with a detailed explanation of each link. The number of links dedicated to one point of view should not overwhelm the number dedicated to any other. One should attempt to add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. If one point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first. (For more information, see Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view – in particular, Misplaced Pages's guidelines on undue weight.)
  4. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article. Ideally this content should be integrated into the Misplaced Pages article, then the link would remain as a reference, but in some cases this is not possible for copyright reasons or because the site has a level of detail which is inappropriate for the Misplaced Pages article.
  5. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as professional athlete statistics, screen credits, interviews, or online textbooks.

Links to be used occasionally

  1. For albums, movies, books, and other creative works, one or two links to professional reviews.
  2. A web directory category when deemed appropriate by those contributing to an article, with preference to open directories.
  3. On articles about topics with many fansites, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate, marking the link as such.
  4. Very large pages should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Worldwide, many use Misplaced Pages with a low-speed connection. Unusually large pages should be annotated as such.
  5. Links to sites that have a license to reproduce copyrighted works are appropriate when the link supports the verifiability of the article.

Links normally to be avoided

Except where noted, the below do not override the list of what should be linked to; for example, if the subject of an article has an official website, then it should be linked to even if it contains factually inaccurate material.

  1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes a Misplaced Pages:Featured article.
  2. Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources.
  3. A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns; neutrality is an important objective at Misplaced Pages, and a difficult one. If it is relevant and informative, mention it on the talk page and let other — neutral — Misplaced Pages editors decide whether to add the link.
  4. Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising, or that require payment to view the relevant content, colloquially known as external link spamming.
  5. Sites that are inaccessible to a significant proportion of the community, such as sites that only work with a specific browser.
  6. Direct links to documents that require external applications (such as Flash or Java) to view the relevant content, unless the article is about such rich media. If you do link to such material make a note of what application is required.
  7. Foreign-language sites, unless they contain visual aids such as maps, diagrams, or tables, per the guideline on foreign-language sites.
  8. Bookstore sites; instead, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources.
  9. Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself.
  10. Links to search engine results.
  11. Links to sites that violate the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations. Sites which fail to provide licensing information or to respond to requests for licensing information should not be used. (Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States.)
  12. Fanlistings are generally not informative and should not ordinarily be included.

Sites requiring registration

Many otherwise valuable sites are of limited use to most readers because the site requires registration or a paid subscription. Many on-line newspapers require registration to access some or all of their content, while some require a subscription. On-line magazines frequently require subscriptions to access their sites or for premium content. If old newspaper and magazines articles are archived, there is usually a fee for accessing them.

A site that requires registration or a subscription should not be linked to unless:

  • It is being used as a source,
  • The web site itself is the topic of the article, or
  • It has relevant content of substantially higher quality than any available from other websites.

Foreign language links

English language links are strongly preferred in the English-language Misplaced Pages. It may be appropriate to have a link to a foreign language site, such as when an official site is unavailable in English, or when the link is to the subject's text in its original language.

When the external links are to sites in multiple languages, it can be useful to label them with language icons, including labeling the English-language sites in the list with {{en icon}}, which shows as Template:En icon. These are available for most languages, and follow the usual two-letter language codes: for example, {{es icon}}, {{fr icon}}, etc.

Rich media

There are two reasons that links directly to rich media should not be used. The first is that the source of the material and any applicable copyright is not evident from the link itself. For this reason a link to an external web page (HTML) that adequately describes and links to the media should be used instead.

Second, many media formats require external applications (e.g. Adobe Flash) which may not be freely available. Many of these formats are controlled by a single company and are not appropriate for use in an encyclopedia with a public license. If copyright and other restrictions permit, the media should be converted into a more suitable format and uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, from which it may be linked directly. In the rare cases where a link directly to the media is appropriate, an explicit indication of the technology needed to access the content must be given, as in the following examples:

What can be done with a dead external link

Links to dead URLs in a list of external links are of no use to Misplaced Pages articles. Such dead links should either be removed, or updated with archived versions, which may be found at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Note however, that the matter can be quite different when these links are references: see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources#What to do when a reference link "goes dead".

Note that some dead links are caused by vandalism (for example, a vandal disabling links to products competing with the vandal's favored product). It may therefore be worth checking to see if there is a working link in earlier versions of article. Some vandalism of this type is quite subtle, such as replacing ASCII letters in the URL with identical-looking Cyrillic letters.

Redirection sites

Do not use URL redirection sites in external links. Such sites include tinyurl.com and makeashorterlink.com. Most of these sites are listed in the m:Spam blacklist because they are frequently abused by linkspammers, which means that it is not possible to save a page that contains such a link. Since URL redirection sites are added to the blacklist whenever abuse occurs, you may create problems for future editors by using them.

Permanent URL sites, like purl.org, may be a different case, as sometimes the PURL version is considered by the site owner to be a more official URL than the direct URL — in that case, the PURL should be used.

How to link

External links section

There are two basic formats for external links. The most common is to add a list of external links at the end of an article. Put here, in list form, any web sites that you have used or recommend for readers of the article. The standard format for these is to have a level 2 header (i.e. == Header ==) named "External links" followed by a bullet list of links.

If an article has a large number of external links, it may be helpful to use subheaders to classify them. This can be done using another level of section heading, usually the fifth, which will then appear in the table of contents, like this: 

===== Sub-header of links =====
* 
*

... or with the "semicolon" syntax, like this: 

; Sub-header of links
* 
*

which both yield:

Sub-header of links

If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question. If you cite an online article, try to provide as much meaningful citation information as possible.

"External links" vs "External link"

Current consensus is that if an article has a section for external links, it should be called "External links" (plural), whether the section has one link or multiple links. Reasons for this include:

  1. Experience shows that future editors often add links without changing the section heading.
  2. Some contributors may be dissuaded from adding links to a section titled External link, since it seems to suggest that there should only be one link.
  3. Using External links gives greater stylistic consistency to Misplaced Pages.
  4. Changing a heading breaks any links directly to the External links section.
  5. The purpose of the section is to provide External links rather than a single External link, so it does not matter how many actual links are listed.

Arguments, which have been considered and rejected, for using "External link" (singular) for sections that only contain one link are:

  1. Misplaced Pages's community-editing usually leads to prompt correction of grammatical agreement oversights.
  2. There is no evidence to show that a significant number of contributors may be dissuaded from adding links to a section titled External link.
  3. In one sense, the use of External links to head a section containing a single link is grammatically incorrect.

Citations

Main page: Misplaced Pages:Cite your sources

The second basic format for external links covers sentences or paragraphs that require specific references. This form can be placed in the body of an article at the end of the relevant sentence or paragraph. These links have no description other than an automatically generated number.

For example,

'''Frankton''' was one of the names considered for the state of Franklin.

would render something like

Frankton was one of the names considered for the state of Franklin.

However, because links often cease to work without warning, the use of more complete citations is recommended.

See also

For more detailed information regarding Misplaced Pages policy toward and appropriate syntax for external links, see:

Maintenance coordination
Misplaced Pages:External links Add topic