Editing Help:Link (section)

=== <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  However, as all Wikimedia sites now require HTTPS, this linking style is obsolete and should no longer be used.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).