Wikitravel:External links
From Wikitravel
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External links are links to other web sites besides Wikitravel. In general the Wikitravel policy is that external links should be kept to a bare minimum, and only links to primary sources should be used. There should not be an external links section on any article - see Where did the "External links" sections go?
[edit] What to link to
External links should point to primary sources. For example:
- Official tourist offices for a destination
- Official government Web sites
- The official Web site for a hotel
- The official Web site for a restaurant or bar
- The official Web site for a museum, park, or other attractions
- Cultural and educational organizations offering programs of interest to travelers, such as foreign language instruction or cooking classes.
Using only primary sources makes our guide more succinct: where there is usually one or sometimes two primary source links for any subject, there can be hundreds or thousands of secondary source links. We also avoid subjectivity and conflict. It's difficult to decide collaboratively which of the thousands of English-language newspapers, magazines, and Web sites has done the very best travel article about New York, but it's quite easy for everyone to agree that http://www.nycvisit.com/ is the official city visitor's guide.
Official sites do not need to contain English text — pictures, prices, schedules etc can still come in handy, and some Wikitravellers will be able to read the language or use online translation services to decipher it.
[edit] What not to link to
Avoid linking to secondary sources - for example, avoid links to:
- Hotel or travel booking services / aggregators
- Nightlife guides and reviews in nightlife guides
- Restaurant guides and reviews in restaurant guides
- Blogs, forums, lists of links, portals, price comparison websites, virtual tours, webcams, Wi-Fi directories, etc
- Map services
- Newspaper and magazine articles
- Personal image galleries and photo/video sharing websites (Flickr, Webshots, YouTube, etc)
- Personal travelogues
- Search engine results (http://www.google.com/search?q=Montreal)
- Wikipedia articles that have a different subject to the Wikitravel article - see Wikitravel:Links to Wikipedia#Different subject
In particular, avoid links to other travel guides, including audio guides and audio tours. We should have travel information in Wikitravel, not linked to from Wikitravel. This is an incentive issue; if we have lots of links to other travel guides, we lose the impetus to create our own. In addition, many users print copies of Wikitravel articles or use Wikitravel Press travel guides, and therefore need information to be within the article rather than linked to at another site.
[edit] External link format
There are three possible formats for "external" links. For the sake of consistency, we only use the first:
[edit] Good
- Example, [1]. To create a footnote style external link the syntax is [http://www.example.com/].
Note that "http://" is included in the link. The software won't recognize a link if the "http://" is missing from a link.
[edit] Bad
Don't use these:
- Front-linked example.
- Unpacked http://www.example.com/.
[edit] External link usage
There are three possible uses for external links:
- Links in listings: Please include primary source links for listing establishments (e.g., museum web-site, restaurant web-site, hotel web-site, etc.).
- Official destination links: If an official web site exists for the destination then it should be linked to within the first sentence of the article, immediately after the name of the destination. Only primary links should be used; a web site that is not maintained by the destination would not be appropriate. For example, in the Disneyland article, a link to http://www.disneyland.com/ and only to that web site is appropriate.
- In-article text links: Links within the article text should be kept to a minimum and should point only to primary sources. Examples of valid links might include airline companies, bus companies, and sites offering daily updates and warnings about a destination's condition
[edit] Further guidelines
[edit] Use short readable links
Remember that for print versions of Wikitravel, links will be presented in all their URLish ugliness. Readers of the print versions will have to type in by hand the URL that you add. For this reason, try to use the shortest URL possible for links, even if it means a little more work on the part of the reader when they click through a link. Where possible, try to trim out "housekeeping" stuff from the URL. You can almost always leave off "index.html", "index.htm", "index.asp" or "index.php" from a link, for example.
If http://www.example.com/ redirects automatically to a home page like http://www.example.com/home/index.asp?id=384&lang=en, use the shorter version, even though it's "really" going to the long version. Similarly, if http://www.example.net/ has a "splash screen" which eventually takes you to http://www.example.net/index2.htm or something, leave the top-level link in, even though the "real information" is located elsewhere.
Tip: For many hotel chains, location.chain.com works as quick and easy redirect. For example, Le Meridien Singapore can be found at http://singapore.lemeridien.com/ as well as http://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeridien/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1844&EM=VTY_LM_singapore_1844_overview, and the short version will not break when the chain changes its reservation system (which seems to happen every few months).
Of course, if the page you're linking to isn't at the "root" of the site, it makes sense to leave the path part of the URL in. Don't change http://examples.org/scottish-country-dance/ to http://examples.org/, since that top-level page probably doesn't have the same dance information.
[edit] English-language sites
This version of Wikitravel is for English-language speakers (but see language versions of Wikitravel). With few exceptions, it's preferable to include only links to English-language sites or pages. Sites don't have to be exclusively in English, but they should provide some English-language information that will be valuable to the traveller.
Many sites have the information in several languages, e.g., the local language and English. They handle this in different ways:
- Some use the browser's language preference in which case you just use a link to the main page. This has the advantage that if a non-English speaker uses the English Wikitravel and follows a link to a page also available in his/her language, the right version will be displayed. You will have to set you browser's language preference to English to test if there is an English version or you can enter the URL in a proxy such as Proxify. You can check the language preference of your browser, also.
- Some sites have an English version with a good permanent URL, such as: http://travel.example.com/english, use that URL
- Some sites have a main page in a non-English language with a cryptic link to an English page, such as http://travel.example.com/fff?349sdshd.asp. This might not be a permanent link, so it is better to use the URL of the main page and let Wikitravel users find the current link to the English version.
[edit] Unpack links
A link is not a substitute for actual information. Our goals include creating pages useful as printed guides. So, we need to include information that's at the other end of a link, even if it may seem redundant for on-line use.
For example, in a restaurant listing, get the address, phone number, hours, and prices for the restaurant, even if it's right there on an external Web page. Someone using a printed guide won't have access to whatever's on that page.
[edit] Print version
Be aware that when Wikitravel articles are printed the Wikitravel stylesheets are set up so that the full URL of a link will automatically appear in text enclosed in parentheses immediately after the link text. For example, an attraction listing would print as:
- Asian Civilisations Museum at Empress Place, 1 Empress Place, tel. +66 63327798, [1] (http://www.nhb.gov.sg/ACM).
[edit] Special cases
[edit] Open Directory Project
We have a special format that features links to the Open Directory Project in a special part of the page - see Links to Open Directory.
[edit] Wikipedia
We have a special format that features links to Wikipedia in a special part of the page - see Links to Wikipedia.
[edit] World66
As Wikitravel is merging with World66, we have a special relationship with it that justifies an exception to the rule against linking to other guides. We have a special format that features links to World66 in a special part of the page - see Links to World66.
