Wikipedia:URL

There are three forms of external link syntax:

To suppress the external link icon, place the external link between <span class="plainlinks">...</span> tags.

Otherwise, readers are forced to use the specified connection method. If you don't specify the protocol, readers can continue to use the protocol to read that page.

The URL returned by {{SERVER}} magic word begins with //.

The page name may include a namespace prefix (such as "Help:" in this page). With some special pages it may also include a parameter, as in (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 ), 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:

An unofficial redirect site mentioned at User:Tl-lomas/enwp.org offers two types of shorter URL.

The first form is not controlled by the , so it could stop working or change purpose at any time.

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

For use in 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 .

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Wikipedia