Help:Plainlinks - Wikipedia

This help page is a how-to guide.

It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Linking and page manipulation
Linking and diffs URLs Links Orphans Interlanguage links Interwiki linking Shortcuts External links External link icons Plainlinks Link color Colon trick Pipe trick Self links What links here Linksearch Manual of Style on linking Navigation templates Hatnotes Template index for links Diffs Simplest diff guide Simple diff and link guide Complete diff and link guide
Categorization Category Categorization guideline Classification Container category FAQ for categorization FAQ for categories Categories, lists, and navigation templates Categorizing articles about people By year Redirect categories User categories Overcategorization User categories Template index for categories
Moving and redirecting How to move a page for beginners Redirects Moving a page Requested moves How to fix cut-and-paste moves Moving files to Commons Userfication Non-admin and admin-only moves Template index for moving Template index for redirects
Merging Merging Proposed article mergers Requests for history merge Merge and delete? Merge what? Delete or merge? Template index for merging WikiProject Merge
Splitting Splitting Template index for splitting
Importing and copying How to import articles Requests for page importation Import Export Copying within Wikipedia
Protecting Protection Protection policy High-risk templates Requests for page protection Rough guide to semi-protection
Additional How to create a page Article creation Editing Deletion process
v t e

A plainlink is a link external to en.wikipedia.org, but in this case not followed by an external link icon. It is used for links internal to en.wikipedia.org which require special URL parameters and therefore cannot be reached by wikilinks.

Making a plainlink

[edit]

The arrow icon can be suppressed by:

Placing the external link syntax between <span class="plainlinks">...</span> tags.
Using {{Plain link}}.

For example,

<span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]</span>

{{Plain link|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki|Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia}}

produce Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Some templates such as {{Querylink}} and {{Oldid}} use plainlinks.