Help:Wiki University Wikitext--Broken Links





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In the following material are examples of links that were entered incorrectly. Some links actually work but they don't look right. We refer to them as "broken" links. In this lesson, you will see some of the mistakes people make in entering links and how to correct them.

1. External link with no name
. This is how it was entered:  
 * NOTICE there is only a number rather than a name.
 * NOTICE by clicking on the link, it will take you to what was intended, however, you just don't know what the link is for or to what site it will take you.

This is how it should be entered:

 Wikipedia


 * NOTICE the space between org and Wikipedia.

The corrected link will now appear this way:

Wikipedia

2. Another example of link with no name

 * NOTICE that it created a numbered link.
 * NOTICE however, when you click on the number it takes you to a page that does not exist

This is how it was entered:  

This how it should be entered:  Wikipedia


 * NOTICE the space between org and Wikipedia.

The corrected link will now appear this way:

Wikipedia

3. External link with URL as the name
https://wikipedia.org
 * NOTICE this link does not look like an external link should. Unless insructed to do so, a name should be used for display, not the URL.

This is how it was entered:  https://wikipedia.org

This is how it should be entered:  Wikipedia

The corrected link will now appear this way:

Wikipedia

4. External link shows in HTML coding
Wikipedia This is how it was entered:  Wikipedia
 * NOTICE this is how an external link looks on the internet.

This is how it should be entered:  Wikipedia

Broken Internal Links
There are a lot of different ways to break an internal link.

5. Using a space instead of a pipe
Missouri, United States Genealogy Missouri


 * NOTICE the link is red. This means the link will take you to a page that does not exist.

This is how it was entered  Missouri, United States Genealogy Missouri

This is how it should be entered:  Missouri

The corrected link will now appear this way:

Missouri

6. Not having enough square brackets
[Missouri Genealogy|Missouri]

This was how it was entered <div style="border:2px solid crimson; background-color:moccasin; padding:10px; width:97%; font-size:10pt; font-family:Courier New"> [Missouri, United States Genealogy|Missouri]
 * NOTICE this time the link is not even red. The browser thinks this coding is a normal sentence.

This is how it should be entered: <div style="border:2px solid crimson; background-color:moccasin; padding:10px; width:100%; font-size:10pt; font-family:Courier New"> Missouri The corrected link will now appear this way:

Missouri

7. Wrong kind of brackets


This is how it was entered: <div style="border:2px solid crimson; background-color:moccasin; padding:10px; width:97%; font-size:10pt; font-family:Courier New">
 * NOTICE the link is in red which means the page does not exist.
 * NOTICE the word template: with a colon. This indicates that the browser thinks this is a template.  We will talk about templates in a later lesson.

This is how it should be entered: <div style="border:2px solid crimson; background-color:moccasin; padding:10px; width:100%; font-size:10pt; font-family:Courier New"> Missouri The corrected link will now appear this way:

Missouri

Try these out


<div style="border-top:10px solid lightgreen; border-left:10px solid lightgreen; border-right:10px solid lightgreen; "> <div style="font-size:14pt; width:100%; height:30px; vertical-align:middle; background-color:lightgreen; ">Exercises Copy and paste these codes for broken links into your sandbox and see if you can fix them:
 * 
 * [Missouri, United States Genealogy|Missouri]
 * <ref="https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/California,_United_States_Genealogy"|>California Genealogy
 * [Missouri, United States Genealogy Additional Resources|Missouri Additional Resources]]
 * Waldo, Maine Communities]
 * [|Ancestry.com]
 * [|Ancestry.com]

<div style="width:160px; height:20px; padding-top:3px; padding-left:10px; background-color:orange; color:white; border:1px solid orange; border-radius:5px; ">Check your answers

<div style="border-top:10px solid lightgray; border-left:10px solid lightgray; border-right:10px solid lightgray; "> Quick Quiz
 * How can links be broken?
 * A. Too many brackets.
 * B. Not enough brackets.
 * C. Wrong kind of brackets.
 * D. No space in an external link between URL and name of link.
 * E. No pipe in an internal link between name of page and name of link.
 * F. Using the URL as the name of the link.
 * G. All of the above.

<div style="width:160px; height:20px; padding-top:3px; padding-left:10px; background-color:orange; color:white; border:1px solid orange; border-radius:5px; ">Check your answers

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