Editing Help:Link (section)

== <span id="External link">External links</span> ==
{{See|Wikipedia:External links}}
External links use [[URL]]s to link directly to any web page.  External links are enclosed in single square brackets (rather than double brackets as with internal links), with the optional link text separated from the URL by a space (not a "|" as with internal links).  When rendered, external links are followed by an [[Help:external link icons|external link icon]].  For example, 
::<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[http://www.example.org/ link text]</syntaxhighlight> 
will be rendered as 
::[http://www.example.org/ link text].

The URL must be specified in full, including the protocol: for example <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[http://...]</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[https://...]</syntaxhighlight>.  Short form URLs that are accepted in some other (non-Wikimedia) contexts like <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[example.org/ link text]</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[www.example.org/ link text]</syntaxhighlight> are not accepted and will not result in a link being generated.  Instead, the link generating markup including the square brackets will be copied directly to the marked-up output, thus <nowiki>"[example.org/ link text]"</nowiki> or <nowiki>"[www.example.org/ link text]"</nowiki>.

When no link text is specified, external links appear numbered: <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[http://www.example.org/some-page][http://www.example.org/some-other-page]</syntaxhighlight> becomes [http://www.example.org/some-page][http://www.example.org/some-other-page]. Links with no square brackets display in their entirety: <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>http://www.example.org/</syntaxhighlight> displays as http://www.example.org/.

For more detailed information on external linking practices, see {{section link|Help:URL|Linking to URLs}}. Also note that [[Special:LinkSearch]] can be used to find all pages linking to a given site.

The external link syntax can also be used to link to particular pages within Wikipedia that are not accessible by wikilinks, such as [[Help:Page history|page history]], the edit view, an old version of a page, the [[WP:Diff|diff]] between two versions, etc. It can also be used to create a [[m: Help:Navigational image|navigational image]].

To display an external link without the arrow icon, place the external link syntax between <syntaxhighlight lang="html" inline><span class="plainlinks">...</span></syntaxhighlight> tags. For instance, <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Link&action=history this page's history]</span></syntaxhighlight>, or its template equivalent {{Tl|Plainlink}} <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>{{plainlink|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Link&action=history|name=this page's history}}</syntaxhighlight>, will be rendered as: <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Link&action=history this page's history]</span>. If you make frequent use of this, the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/extension:CharInsert CharInsert] gadget (which can be activated under {{myprefs|Gadgets|Editing &rarr; CharInsert}}), has an option to insert this text in its "Wiki markup" mode.

=== <span id="Http: and https:">http: and https:</span> ===

[https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/12/securing-wikimedia-sites-with-https/ In mid-2015], Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia sites were changed to use [[HTTPS]] to encrypt all traffic.  Accessing a URL like <code>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Link</code> will result in the webserver redirecting you to <code>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Link http<u>s</u>://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Link]</code>.  Therefore, when making an external-style link to an internal page (that is, using single square brackets, or a bare URL), <code>https</code> should be specified to avoid the needless redirect, as in <code>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Link&action=history</code>.

In the past, when Wikipedia could be accessed via either HTTP or HTTPS, a [[WP:PRURL|protocol-relative URL]] could be used to make an external link (or external-style link to an internal page) which would use <code>http:</code> or <code>https:</code> depending on how the page the link appeared on was accessed, as in <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>[//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links]</syntaxhighlight>.  However, as all Wikimedia sites now require HTTPS, this linking style is obsolete and should no longer be used. <code>http:</code> or <code>https:</code> should be explicitly specified as appropriate for the target site (preferring <code>https:</code>, where available).