Wikivoyage:Internal links

This page in a nutshell: Make links to other Wikivoyage pages, but generally only link the first instance of an article name. These should be incorporated into the text of an article if practical; otherwise, use a "See also" link at the end of a section.

Shortcut:
WV:IL

One of the most important features of a wiki is the network of links connecting every page on the site. Links to other Wikivoyage pages are called "internal links" (as opposed to external links that send the reader away from our site). A robust network of internal links is critical to our readers' navigation of the site, not to mention the boost it gives to our pages' rankings in search engines. Use a link anytime you think the linked article would be relevant and useful for readers.

Don't overlink

It's important that we don't overlink. Avoid adding unnecessary links to potential articles that don't fit with our goals and that won't have travel content. Wikivoyage has specific goals, and content that doesn't have much to do with travel is probably never going to have an article in Wikivoyage. Even if there is an article on a common term, such as taxicabs, think carefully about why a reader would use the link before adding the square brackets.

You also don't need to link an article every time it's mentioned in the text. For most travel topics, linking just once per article is sufficient, unless the references are widely separated in the text. For placenames (that is, places that have or could have Wikivoyage articles), you should always link them the first time they appear in the article, and link again if it's been a while since the last link (usually no more than once per major section, max). An exception applies for lists of places (including navigational elements like Template:Routebox and Template:Regionlist), where you should be consistent; do re-link a place if its neighbors are all linked too, to avoid a patchy visual effect.

How to create an internal link

A link is added by putting double brackets around the linked item [[examplepage]]. It's often desirable to link to a more specific section rather than a whole article. For example, "... unlike the situation for Russian visas, where citizens of some countries are exempt from the normal requirements". Note here that a pipe has been used to work the item into the sentence more smoothly: [[Russia#Visas|Russian visas]] was typed in to display Russian visas, but clicking on the link will still take the reader to the Visa section in the article on Russia.

You can also link to specific sections within the current article, but do this only sparingly. Example: "Check out Hooters in the [[#Drink]] section".

For related pages that don't really work into the text, use a "See also" at the bottom of the appropriate section of the page:

If the page isn't broken into sections, simply put the "See also:" at the bottom of the page itself. "See also:" should be the last thing on the page, but before the routebox template, if any.

You can also add the related template to the bottom of the page {{related|examplepage}} which will show the link in a "related pages" block in the navigation bar on the left.

Links to listings

You can link to listings either by their name (as given in the name parameter) or by their Wikidata code (the "Q" and number given in the listing's wikidata parameter). For example, both of these link to the Eiffel Tower listing:

[[Paris/7th arrondissement#La Tour Eiffel|Eiffel Tower]] → Eiffel Tower.
[[Paris/7th arrondissement#Q243|Eiffel Tower]] → Eiffel Tower.

The advantage of the former is that the intended link target is obvious, and that you don't need to look up the code, the advantage of the latter that a change to the listing name won't break the link (somebody might change "La Tour Eiffel" into "Eiffel Tower".

Shortcuts

Shortcuts have been created to commonly used policy pages to make easier to cite policies in discussions and comment lines, for example, you can type wv:bold or wv:italic instead of Wikivoyage:Creating emphasis. (A partial list is found at Wikivoyage:Shortcuts.) To make it easier for new readers to understand the discussions, shortcuts should use words instead of acronyms, e.g., for Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists, wv:lists is more understandable than "WV:ALL".

To avoid creating deadlinks in old discussions, acronym-based shortcuts created before 2023 haven't been deleted, but:

new acronym-based shortcuts should not be created,
users are encouraged to stop using the acronym shortcuts, and
acronym-based shortcuts should be removed from policy pages to discourage their further use, and replaced by word-based shortcuts if needed.

Other namespaces

Do not link to articles in other namespaces (Wikivoyage:, User:, Talk:) from the main namespace. It's totally OK to link from those namespaces to each other or to the main namespace, but not vice versa. An exception is for editorial or procedural text like Article status messages ("Stub", "Outline", etc.) In these cases, the links should be hidden inside templates.