Help:Linking

Links are words enclosed within square brackets. A link to an existing page is blue, while an invalid link is red.

Regular linking
Regular linking means that you just enclose the name of the article in the square brackets, and that is then the way it will be presented in the article.
 * green links to Banjo-Tooie.

Labels
A label is a text-string added to a link, so that one can link to an article, but have the link say something other than the name of the article. There are basically two ways of labeling: piped labeling and add-on labeling.

Piped labeling
Piped labeling is done by adding a pipe between the actual link and the label you wish to present.
 * gray links to User:Results May Vary, but the label appears as RMV and displays like this: RMV

Add-on labeling
Add-on labels is text "added on" to the link. It is written directly after the two closing square brackets of a link.
 * greengray links to Imp, but displays as Imps. This is most often used for adding plurals or an "ing" suffix to a link. For example, writing Imps instead of Imps or Jumping instead of Jumping . The restrictions are that any symbol, even uppercase letters, can break the label.
 * ImpS (a case of an uppercase letter breaking the label)
 * Imp# (a case of a symbol breaking the label)

Mixing
It is possible to mix both types of labeling, but there really is no point, since what is written as the add-on label might as well be a part of the piped label.
 * Results May Varys (code is graygray)
 * Results May Varys (code is gray)

External linking
To make an external link, just write the URL. Please note that this means that the http:// part is needed. Simply starting the link with www. will not work.
 * green automatically turns into https://rarewiki.com/

However, if you wish to label the link, you must enclose it in single square brackets and write the label after a space as opposed to after a pipe. It has the same properties as a Piped Label though.
 * redgreen grayblue (note the space between the URL and the label) becomes Main page

Add-on labeling is not possible with external links.
 * redgreen graybluegray gives Main pages (note that "s" is not part of the label)

Subpages
Subpages, can be linked to like regular articles, as long as the entire path is there.
 * green gives User:Results May Vary/Sandbox

It is likewise possible to label them as regular links.

Section linking
Sections of a page are determined by the use of "="s as headers in a page. In order to direct a link towards a certain section of a page, the "#" symbol must be used inside the link. To do this, link to a page as normal, but immediately after the page name, insert an # and the name of the section desired.


 * green gives Cooper

Piped linking is usually utilized when linking to sections of a page in mainspace articles.


 * Cooper gives Cooper

Pipes
Pipes cut down the amount of piping needed for linking to disambigs, other spaces and titles with colons or commas. For example, if you wished to link to the page Viva Piñata (series) and show it as blue, you can type Viva Piñata.

Pipe trick
There is a "pipe trick" where simply typing Viva Piñata (series) also gives blue. This saves a lot of time and effort if you're fixing a lot of links. Here are some examples: