Wikipedia:Linking to Wikipedia
![]() | This is an explanatory essay about the policy on reusing Wikipedia content. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
Linking to Wikipedia from your own website
You are welcome to link to Wikipedia articles (and other Wikipedia pages, such as this one) from your own website. You do not need to ask us first.
How to link
[edit]Canonical Wikipedia article URLs (web addresses) look like: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Kitten
(that's a link to Kitten).
Links for articles which have spaces in their titles replace those spaces with underscores; for Top Cat, for example, the URL is http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Top_Cat
Linking to sections
[edit]You can "deep link" to a section of an article (or other Wikipedia page), using a hash character (#
), then the section's title, with underscore characters (_
) replacing spaces. For example, both http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Kitten#External_links
and [[Kitten#External_links]]
, link to the External links section of Kitten. However, be aware that section heading names are case sensitive (i.e., 'External' and 'external' are treated differently). Also, section headings may be renamed or deleted and so such links may break.
Permanent links to old versions of pages
[edit]You may also link to a specific version of an article, ignoring any subsequent changes.
The URL http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Kitten&oldid=4526501
links to the article as it appeared at 12:20 (UTC), 9 July 2004. Specific links like this can be found in the history tab of each page.
When linking to a section of an old article, the section name has to be added at the very end of the URL, e.g. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Kitten&oldid=4526501#Caring_for_kittens
.
Reusing content
[edit]You are, of course, welcome to use Wikipedia content on your own website instead of linking to it, because Wikipedia content uses an open licence (CC-by-SA 3.0). If you wish to do that, our page on reusing Wikipedia content has further advice.
If you wish to cite Wikipedia in your work, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia.