Help:Permanent_link

Help:Permanent link

Help:Permanent link

A permanent link (or permalink) is a link to a specific version of a wiki page. Normal links always lead to the current version of a page, but the permalink leads to the text as it was at the time; the text does not include any edits made since. Unlike what the name suggests, the permalink does not show exactly the same page, though; only the main text is guaranteed to be retained. The pictures included in the page are still shown at their most current versions,[1] as are the templates, most notably the boxes with text and images placed in the page's right-top corner, as well as any content transcluded from other pages. In other words, the permalink displays what the article would look like today if someone reverted to the revision in question.

A permalink can be made by clicking 'Permanent link' in the sidebar's toolbox or by accessing a prior version of a page from its page history tab. Both of these will display that version and the page's URL can be used as the target of the permalink.

[[Special:PermanentLink/oldid]] or the shortcut [[Special:Permalink/oldid]] can be used to make a wikilink when this is preferred over a URL. oldid is the revision number in the URL of a permanent link like https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&oldid=402359171, which is thus equivalent to Special:Permalink/402359171.

The normal rules for wikilinks apply, e.g. regarding section names, interwiki prefixes and pipes. Wikilinks work in edit summaries, unlike URLs. A wikilink only works in Wikipedia, and some other wikis if it has the right interwiki prefix. Here are some examples showing how to wikilink from a Wikipedia page, to a specific version of a page. Note the oldid part of the permanent link, and write your own Wikicode:

More information Link to, How to create ...

See also

This page is referenced in the Wikipedia Glossary.

Notes

  1. [1]
    The most obvious differences are if images that existed at the time are subsequently deleted. They would be shown as red links, and inevitably the layout of the article would suffer.
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Help:Permanent_link, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.