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[b] Instead, include appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable. Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
External links and references are two important elements of Wikipedia that newcomers sometimes find trouble with. This page is designed to cover only the technical aspects of linking and referencing; it is essential that editors also familiarize themselves with Wikipedia:External links, Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Citing sources, as well as Wikipedia's various other policies ...
External links use URLs to link directly to any web page. External links are enclosed in single square brackets (rather than double brackets as with internal links), with the optional link text separated from the URL by a space (not a "|" as with internal links). When rendered, external links are followed by an external link icon. For example,
Some contributors may be dissuaded from adding links to a section titled External link, since it seems to suggest that there should only be one link. Using External links gives greater stylistic consistency to Wikipedia. Changing a heading breaks any links directing to the External links section. The purpose of the section is to provide ...
Linking through hyperlinks is an important feature of Wikipedia. Internal links bind the project together into an interconnected whole. Interwikimedia links bind the project to sister projects such as Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikipedia in other languages, and external links bind Wikipedia to the World Wide Web.
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
As an external link: Almost never. Do not link to items for sale. Wikipedia isn't the place to promote whatever you are selling. Blog posts or similar pages might rarely be acceptable. As a reliable source: * Maybe. eBay has been used by reliable sources for historical auction records. Editors should use common sense here by making sure that ...
However if you want to link to an outside website, or to certain specially generated Wikimedia pages (such as a past version of an article), it is necessary to provide the full URL. This is done using external link syntax. There are three forms of external link syntax: