Editing Help:URL

{{About|various URLs of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia servers|how to markup links|Help:Link}}
{{redirect|WP:URL|the user rights log|Special:Log/rights}}
{{Wikipedia how to|H:URL|WP:URL}}
Like all pages on the [[World Wide Web]], the pages delivered by [[Wikimedia]]'s servers have '''[[URL]]s''' to identify them. These are the addresses that appear in your browser's address bar when you view a page. Wikipedia editors also have the ability to create [[hyperlink]]s to chosen URLs, pointing to pages either within Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, or elsewhere on the Web.

==Linking to URLs==
{{VE documentation}}{{Linking and page manipulation|linking and diffs}}
When editing a page, hyperlinks to other pages within Wikipedia (or other Wikimedia projects) are normally made as ''wikilinks'' or ''interwikilinks'', using the <code><nowiki>[[...]]</nowiki></code> syntax described at [[Help:Link]]. However if you want to link to an outside website, or to certain specially generated Wikimedia pages (such as a past version of an article), it is necessary to provide the full URL. This is done using ''external link syntax''.

There are three forms of external link syntax:
* If the URL is simply included in the wikitext, without square brackets, then it appears as written, and a hyperlink is created: <code><nowiki>https://meta.wikimedia.org/</nowiki></code> produces https://meta.wikimedia.org/
* If the URL is placed in square brackets, then a hyperlink is created with a serial number as its label: <code><nowiki>[https://meta.wikimedia.org/]</nowiki></code> gives [https://meta.wikimedia.org/]
* If the URL is placed in square brackets followed by a space and some text, then that text is used as the label for the hyperlink: <code><nowiki>[https://meta.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia]</nowiki></code> gives [https://meta.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia]

Making a link to elsewhere on the same server as the wiki can be simplified by using <nowiki>{{SERVER}}</nowiki>. Example: <code><nowiki>[{{SERVER}}/relative/url]</nowiki></code>.

To suppress the external link icon, place the external link between {{tag|span|params=class="plainlinks"}} tags.

===Fixing links with unsupported characters===

{{Shortcut|WP:ENCODE}}
* The URL must start with a supported [[URI scheme]]. <code>http://</code> and <code>https://</code> are always supported. <code>ssh://</code>, <code>gopher://</code>, <code>irc://</code>, <code>ircs://</code>, <code>ftp://</code>, <code>ftps://</code>, <code>sftp://</code>, <code>news://</code>, <code>nntp://</code>, <code>worldwind://</code>, <code>telnet://</code>, <code>svn://</code>, <code>git://</code>, <code>mms://</code> and <code>mailto:</code> will create a link and an icon but require an agent registered in the browser.
* URLs containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are [[percent-encoded]]. For example, a space must be replaced by <code>%20</code> (this can be done using the PATH option of the [[Help:Parser function#Paths|{{tlc|urlencode:}}]] parser function).
{{incomplete list}}
{| class="wikitable"
! sp !! " !! ' !! , !! ; !! < !! > !! ? !! [ !! ] !! { !! <nowiki>|</nowiki> !! }
|-
| %20 || %22 || %27 || %2C || %3B || %3C || %3E || %3F || %5B || %5D || %7B || %7C || %7D
|}
:{{small|Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; but unencoded multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup}}
* Titles containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are encoded with HTML character references.
{| class="wikitable"
! newline !! [ !! ] !! &#124;
|-
| space || &amp;#91; || &amp;#93; || &amp;#124;
|}

* Even though PHP's [https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php urlencode()] automatically percent-encodes them, these characters do '''not''' get URL-encoded by [https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/master/includes/GlobalFunctions.php#L309 wfUrlencode()]. The ":" symbol is a partial exception – it is not encoded anywhere except for IIS 7.0.

{| class="wikitable"
! ; !! @ !! $ !! ! !! * !! ( !! ) !! , !! / !! ~ !! :
|-
| %3B || %40 || %24 || %21 || %2A || %28 || %29 || %2C || %2F || %7E || %3A
|}

==URLs of Wikipedia pages==
{{anchor|WP}}{{shortcut|WP:URLs}}
English Wikipedia's URLs begin https://en.wikipedia.org/. That address on its own is redirected to the [[Main Page]].

* The main form of a URL to a Wikipedia page:
*:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_name (used in [[Help:Link#Wikilinks|wikilinks]], recommended when a URL has to be given)
* An alternative form:
*:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Page_name (allows more options by appending parameters to the URL, not indexed by search engines)
The page name may include a [[WP:Namespace|namespace]] prefix (such as "Help:" in this page). With some [[Help:Special page|special pages]] it may also include a parameter, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales (but for most special page parameters, see below).

Other URLs associated with a page are constructed by adding a query string. The string can be added to either of the above forms (as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train?action=history ), but in this case the system defaults to the ''second'' form, i.e. it extends the index.php query string "title=Page_name".

Extended URLs are used:
* To go to a [[WP:Redirect|redirect]] page without following the redirect: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Railway_train&redirect=no
* To go to the edit page (or view the source of a protected page): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&action=edit. Other parameters can be added, such as ''section=5'' or ''section=new'' to edit or add a page section. There are also parameters for preloading text into the edit box of a new page, as used by the inputbox extension (see [[mw:Extension:InputBox]]).
* To access the [[Help:Page history|edit history]] of a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&action=history (or further parameters can be added, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&limit=5&offset=90&action=history, which displays edits 91–95).
* To link to a particular version of a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&oldid=1374279 (where <code>oldid</code> is the revision number), or use [[Template:Oldid]]. A permanent link to the ''present'' version of the page can be accessed by clicking "Permanent link" under "tools" on the left side of the page. The version ID is unique across all pages; the title parameter here has no effect, and can be omitted. [[Special:PermanentLink/1374279]] is a wikilink to a page version.
* To link to a [[Help:Diff|diff]] between two versions of a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&diff=1374279&oldid=1260056, where ''diff'' is the ID of the version to appear on the right. Set ''diff=0'' to compare the current version; set ''diff=0'' and ''oldid=0'' to compare the two most recent versions. Again the title parameter has no real effect (you can in fact compare versions of two different pages). [[Special:Diff/1374279]] is a wikilink to a diff ([https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/63395/ documentation]).
* To [[Help:Watching pages|watch]] or unwatch a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&action=watch (or ''action=unwatch'').
* To purge a page from the server cache (to have it rendered with the latest template versions etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&action=purge (this is not the same as purging your browser cache).
* To perform certain other defined actions, replacing ''purge'' in the above example with ''view'', ''delete'', ''revert'', ''unprotect'', ''info'', ''markpatrolled'', ''validate'', ''render'' (most of these are available only to administrators).
* To obtain the raw wikitext of a page without downloading the full HTML: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&action=raw
* To display the page in [[Help:Printing#Printable version|printable]] version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&printable=yes
* To view a [[Help:Category|category]] listing starting from a specified point: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Disambiguation_pages&from=B
* To specify parameters for a [[Help:Special page|special page]], as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&from=20030918220000 (in this case the "from" parameter is a timestamp, format yyyymmddhhmmss, UTC time, but many other types of parameter are possible, depending on the page).
* To display a page in a particular [[WP:Skin|skin]]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&useskin=monobook. Wikipedia's skins as of 2022 are <code>cologneblue</code>, <code>modern</code>, <code>monobook</code>, <code>vector</code>, <code>vector2</code>. Registered users can set their skin at [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering]].
* To display a page with a particular interface language: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&uselang=de (<code>de</code> is the language code for German). Registered users can set their language at [[Special:Preferences]].
* To display a page with a particular banner from a page linked at [[:meta:Special:CentralNotice]]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&banner=TranslatorSignup
* The below <code>withgadget</code> will work only with gadgets that have been specifically enabled for inline loading. Registered users can load pages at [[Special:Gadgets]] by enabling the corresponding gadget at [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets]].
* To display a page with a script loaded from the MediaWiki namespace: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Train&withgadget=UTCLiveClock (loads [[MediaWiki:Gadget-UTCLiveClock.js]]).
* To display a page formatted for mobile devices, add .m after en https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train

If constructing URLs for Wikipedia pages, remember to convert spaces into underscores, and to percent-code special characters where necessary, as described in the previous section. (For how to do this in template code, see [[#Templates and programming|Templates and programming]] below.)

Various kinds of error message may appear if an invalid URL, or one to which you do not have access, is submitted. In other cases the URL may redirect to a valid one (for example, page titles are converted to their [[WP:Canonical|canonical form]] as they are when they appear in wikilinks).

=== Shorter URL ===
[[Wikipedia:URLShortener]] gives a way to make short URLs to Wikipedia pages.

An unofficial redirect site mentioned at [[User:Tl-lomas/enwp.org]] also offers shorter URLs.

*https:/<nowiki/>/enwp.org/''[[wp:pagename#fullpagename|fullpagename]]''
*https:/<nowiki/>/enwp.org?curid=pageid 

enwp.org is not controlled by the [[Wikimedia Foundation]], so it could stop working or change purpose at any time.

The second form can make a long page name into a short code.
It uses ''pageid'', which remains accurate even if the page is moved.
Pageid has up to 8 digits, shown by clicking "Page information" under "Tools" on the left side of the page.

==URLs on other Wikimedia projects==
Other projects use similar URLs to those of English Wikipedia, except that the domain names vary: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ (Meta), https://fr.wikipedia.org/ (French Wikipedia), https://de.wiktionary.org/ (German Wiktionary), etc.

Note that https://www.wikipedia.org leads to an international Wikipedia portal page, but other URLs beginning with that prefix redirect to English Wikipedia.

Other projects may also use different strings in place of "/w/" and "/wiki/" in URLs. For details, see the [[m:Help:URL|URL help page]] on Meta.

==Templates and programming==
For use in [[WP:Template|templates]], correct URLs can be constructed using certain magic words and parser functions such as ''fullurl'', ''urlencode'' and others. Details of these can be found at [[mw:Help:Magic words]].

Most programmatic interaction with Wikipedia can be performed most efficiently using the API, for which URLs beginning https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php are used. For details, see [[mw:API]].

==See also==
* [[mw:Manual:Parameters to index.php|Parameters to index.php at the MediaWiki manual]]
* [[WP:URLShortener]]
* [[Help:External link icons]]
* [[m:Help:URL|URL help page at Meta]]
* [[:Category:External link templates]]

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