Stock car racing:Manual of Style/Linking

Internal links
The use of links to other articles, for example,, is encouraged. Use the links for all words and terms that are relevant to the article.

The purpose of internal links is to allow readers to easily and conveniently follow their curiosity or research to other articles. These links should be included where it is most likely that a reader would want to follow them elsewhere&mdash;for example, in article introductions, the beginnings of new sections, table cells, and image captions. Generally, where it is likely that a reader may wish to read about another topic, the reader should not have to hunt for a link elsewhere in the page.

On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:
 * more than 10% of the words are contained in links;
 * it has more links than lines;
 * a link is repeated within the same screen—40 lines, perhaps;
 * more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist; or
 * low added-value items are linked without reason, e.g., 1995, 1980s and 20th century.

A table is overlinked if any of the above applies to the table itself.

In the specific case of dates containing the three components day, month and year e.g.,, links permit the date preferences of the reader to operate. Both day-month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly. Other date forms such as year only (e.g., 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.

Do not link words in article titles; find other ways to include and then link those words.

See also Make only links relevant to the context

Links that follow the Wikipedia naming conventions are much more likely to lead to existing articles, and, if there is not yet an article about that subject, good links will make the creation of a correctly named article much easier for later writers.

It is possible to link words that are not exactly the same as the linked article title,  for example. Make sure, however, that it is still clear what the link refers to without having to follow the link. When forming plurals, do so thus:. This is clearer to read in wiki form than &mdash; and easier to type. This syntax is also applicable to adjective constructs such as, as well as hyphenated phrases and the like.

Try to link accurately. While editing you can use preview to check a link, and follow it by opening the page in another window. If an article you want to link doesn't yet exist, do a quick search to find out if that is really the case; the article may have a different name than you expect.

A link going straight to the target is preferred over a link relying on a redirect.

As the World Wide Web Consortium says, "Don't say 'click here'; not everyone will be clicking".

Capitalisation: there is currently no rule prescribing whether one should write "See also Train" or "See also train" (and similar with a bulleted list), but in the case of multiple links, be consistent.

Syntax
The syntax for referencing a URL is simple. Just enclose it in single brackets:



The URL must begin with or another common protocol, such as or.

In addition, putting URLs in plain text with no markup automatically produces a link, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/. However, this feature may disappear in a future release. Therefore, in cases where you wish to display the URL because it is intrinsically valuable information, it is better to use the short form of the URL (host name) as the optional text: produces en.wikipedia.org.

Link titles
You should always add a title to an external link by supplying descriptive text after the URL separated by a space and enclosing it all in square brackets. For example, to add a title to a bare URL such as (this is rendered as "http://en.wikipedia.org/"), use the following syntax: (this is rendered as "an open-content encyclopedia").

Generally, URLs are ugly and uninformative; it is better for a meaningful title to be displayed rather than the URL itself. For example, "European Space Agency website" is much more reader-friendly than "http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html". There may be exceptions where the url is well known or is the company name. In this case, putting both the url and a valid title will be more informative, for example, "European Space Agency website, www.esa.int".

If the URL 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 page displays all URLs in full, including those given a title, so no information is lost.

URLs as numbered links
Without the optional text, external references appear as automatically numbered links: For example,



is displayed like this:
 * 

Such links have a number of problems:
 * What the link points at is not apparent.
 * If the destination of a link is moved or deleted, it becomes difficult to find that information.

Such links should be converted to have a link text, or better to full web references as described in Cite your sources including information such as the last modification date and author.

Position in article
In most cases, it is preferable to group external links together at the bottom of the article in bullet point format under the heading:

As with other top-level headers, two equal signs should be used to markup the external links header (see Headings elsewhere in the article).

It is also possible to include an inline URL reference within the body of an article. For example:



is displayed like this:


 * One good example of a cooperative online community is the Wikipedia, an open-content encyclopedia.

This is discouraged in most situations.

If an article has used information from an external webpage or it is to be indicated that more information regarding the article will be available, such as statistics, picture gallery, essays on a website, then such links should be part of the "External links" section at the bottom of the article. If the external reference to be cited pertains to only a paragraph or a line in the article, then the use of inline external links as footnotes serves as a proper citation. Footnote links can be used throughout the article; they are replaced by numbers in increasing order starting from 1.

Foreign-language sites
Since this is the English Wikipedia, webpages in English are highly preferred. Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for English-language readers in some cases:


 * when linking to pages with maps, diagrams, photos, tables; explain the key terms with the link, so that people who do not know the language can still interpret them
 * for example, if the subject of the article is a Spanish-language newspaper

In such cases indicate what language the site is in. For example:


 * El País, a Spanish-language newspaper from Madrid

File type
If the link is not to an HTML file, identify the file type. If a browser plugin is required to view to the file, mention that as well.

File size
If the link is to a large file (in the case of html, including the images) a note about that is useful. Someone with a slow connection may decide not to use it.

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