Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context
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Only make links that are relevant to the context.
It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is analogous to a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.
It's not always an easy call. Linking to the number three from triangle is helpful, while linking to the number six from Six O'Clock News would be quite wrong.
This page is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web. See the talk page for additional considerations.
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Rules of thumb for linking
What should not be linked
- Plain English words.
- Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. (This is in contrast to full dates—see below.)
- Subsidiary topics that result in redlinks (links that go nowhere), such as the titles of book chapters and the songs on albums, unless you're prepared to promptly turn those links into real ones yourself by writing the articles. It's usually better to resist linking these items until you get around to writing an article on each one.
- Avoid duplicate links on a page. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. However, link the first occurrence of a term, and always link when directing to a page for more information, e.g. "Relevant background can be found in Fourier series". It is not uncommon to repeat a link that had last appeared much earlier in the article, but there's hardly ever a reason to link the same term twice in the same section.
What should be linked
- Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it.
- Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question.
- Technical terms, unless they are fully defined in the article. Sometimes the most appropriate link is a cross-wiki link to Wiktionary.
Specific issues
- Dates
- see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#When to link dates
- Disambiguation pages
- see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Individual entries
To link or not to link: an example
In the article on Supply and demand, you should:
- almost certainly link microeconomic theory and general equilibrium—these are technical terms that many readers are unlikely to understand at first sight;
- consider linking price and goods, which, although common words, have technical dimensions that are relevant to the article and that link to explanations that are specifically in relation to supply and demand;
- probably not link to the United States because that is a very large article with no particular connection to supply and demand. On the other hand, if there were a relevant discussion in the sub-section on Economy of the United States, it may be appropriate to make a piped section-link using the format [[article#section|section]]. (When you name a piped link, think about what the reader will believe the link is about; in this example, the piped section-link should not be named "United States", because the reader will think that link goes to the general article United States.)
- definitely not link potato, because it is a common term with no particular relationship to the article on Supply and demand, beyond its currently arbitrary use as an example of traded goods in that article.
Other considerations
- Never link to a page that redirects back to the first page; these circular redirects are frustrating to readers.
- Aim for a consistent link density. Don't link eight words in one sentence and then none in the rest of the article. However, the opening of an article is typically more densely linked than the rest, because many items will appear there for the first time.
- Go for the more specific reference. Instead of linking individual words, e.g. Latin phrases, consider linking the more detailed concept: Latin phrases. Such a link is more likely to be interesting and helpful to the user, and almost certainly contains links to the more general terms, in this case, Latin.