Help:Permanent link

This is an information page. It is not an encyclopedic article, nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcuts H:PERL H:PLINK WP:PERMLINK

A permanent link (or permalink) is a link to a specific version of a Wikipedia page. Normal internal links always lead to the current version of a page, but the permalink leads to the text as it was at that point in 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. Certain elements still update dynamically like pictures, templates such as infoboxes 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 revision 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; for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&oldid=402359171, which is thus equivalent to [[Special:Permalink/402359171]] or Special:Permalink/402359171.

The normal rules for wikilinks apply: such as regarding section names, interwiki prefixes, and pipes (as further explained in the table below). 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 wikitext:

• Help:Diff
• Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide
• Help:Page history § Linking to a specific revision of a page for more details of browsing the history of Wikipedia.
• Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for more details on how to cite Wikipedia, for which you may need a permalink.
• Template:Oldid2, link to an old version of a page
• Template:Cross-wiki oldid, link to an old version of a page in MediaWiki, Meta-Wiki, Wikibooks, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Incubator, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, or Wiktionary
• Template:Cross-wiki language oldid, link to an old version of a page in Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, or Wiktionary in any language