Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking
Appropriate links provide instant pathways to locations within and outside the project that can increase readers' understanding of the topic at hand.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The purpose of linking is to clarify and to provide reasonable navigation opportunities, not to emphasize a particular word.
Other mentions may be linked if helpful, such as in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and hatnotes.
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.
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.
The recommended way to prevent this breakage is to use a {{subst:Anchor}} template specifying the section's prior name.
This method is weaker, since it puts the workload on the editor seeking to change the section title.
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: 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.
The {{See also cat}} template can be used instead: {{See also cat|Phrases}} creates: Overlinking in general is a style issue partly because of the undesirable effect upon readability.
(Legitimate red links are titles to unfulfilled coverage of topics that do not violate "What Wikipedia is not" policy.)
The removal of massive numbers of red links from an overlinked list is best handled by an editor skilled in the automation of text processing.
All of these require the certainty that the red link was legitimate in the first place, such as the conventions on article titles.
For example, the troy ounce, bushel, hand, candela, knot, mho, or millibarn might be considered obscure even if they are well-known within their field of use.
Just enclose it in single brackets with a space between the URL and the text that is displayed when the page is previewed or saved: The text appears as: The URL must begin with either http:// or https:// (preferring https://, where available), or another common protocol, such as ftp:// or news://.
If the URL or domain name is displayed, make it as simple as possible; for example, if the index.html is superfluous, remove it (but be sure to check in preview mode first).
The "printable version" of a Wikipedia article displays all URLs in full, including those given a title, so no information is lost.
Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for readers in the following cases: If the language is one that most readers could not be expected to recognize, or is for some other reason unclear from the name of the publication or the book or article or page title, consider indicating what language the site is in.
If the link is to a very large page (considering all its elements, including images), a note about that is useful since someone with a slow or expensive connection may decide not to visit it.
(There is a related set of templates for some free content resources that are not run by the Wikimedia Foundation.
However, continual change makes linking vulnerable to acquired technical faults, and to the later provision of different information from that which was originally intended.
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