View source for Help:What links here

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Within the Tools section at the top-right of every page (in the [[Help:Preferences#Appearance|standard view]]) is a link labeled "'''What links here'''". This is used to see a list of the pages that [[Help:Link|link]] to (or [[WP:Redirect|redirect]] to, or [[WP:Transclusion|transclude]]) the current page. These are sometimes referred to as '''[[backlink]]s'''.

It is possible to make a wikilink to the "What links here" list for a particular page; to do this type <code><nowiki>[[Special:WhatLinksHere/</nowiki>''Page&nbsp;name'']]</code>, replacing ''Page name'' with the title of the target page. (The same text, without the square brackets, can also be entered in the search box, to access "What links here" for any page title.)

It is also possible to list the pages with <code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/</nowiki>''Page&nbsp;name''|namespace=''number''<nowiki>}}</nowiki></code>, where ''Page name'' is the name of the page, and <code>namespace</code> (optional) is [[help:namespace|the number of the namespace]]. E.g. <code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Help:What links here|namespace=0}}</nowiki></code> lists all pages from article space that link to this page.

To use the tool, click '''[[Special:WhatLinksHere]]''' and type in the page title.

"What links here" is limited to showing actual backlinks. Pages which contain the title being searched for, but where the title has not been linked, are not included in the results. An alternative script ([[User:Lourdes/Backlinks]]) exists to search for such pages, where possible unlinked backlinks may exist for the respective article.

==Overview==
The "What links here" facility lists the pages on the same site (English Wikipedia) which link to (or [[WP:Redirect|redirect]] to, or [[WP:Transclusion|transclude]]) a given page. It is possible to limit the search to pages in a specified [[WP:Namespace|namespace]]. To see this information, click the "What links here" link (or shortcut {{key press|Alt|Shift|j}}) while looking at any page. The list is sorted by page ID, i.e., by date of creation of the page.

This information comes from the [[mw:pagelinks table|pagelinks table]] and the [[mw:templatelinks table|templatelinks table]]. Pages redirected to the given page are marked "redirect". Pages transcluding the given page are marked "transclusion"; for these pages, it is not shown whether they also ''link'' to the given page. For image and other file pages, the pages using the image or file appear on the list and are marked "image link". 

The list of links to an article is useful in a number of ways:
* The number of incoming links gives a rough indication of how important or popular a page is.
* Where the intended subject material of an article is unclear, the list of articles linking to it might provide useful context.
* It facilitates proper [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation]].

The function works even for a page title that does not exist (recording [[WP:Redlink|redlinks]] to that title). The "What links here" link appears on the edit page on which one arrives when following a broken link. Thus, for example, if film articles are linked to the actors, one can find the films an actor has played in even if there is no article about the actor. 

To invoke a "What links here" list directly (in the search box, browser address bar, or wikilinks) use the syntax [[Special:WhatLinksHere/John Smith]] (replacing "John Smith" with the desired target article title).

It should be noted that the parser function [[:mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##ifexist|#ifexist:]] used to cause a listing in "What links here" among the normal links, despite no link being produced. Since June 2025, following {{phab|T14019}}, this behavior is no longer present.

==Limitations==
The following are ''not'' listed at "What links here":
*automatically generated links from [[Help:Category|categories]] to their subcategories and member pages (and vice versa)
*automatically generated links from [[Help:Subpage|subpages]] to their parent pages
*links in [[Help:Edit summary|edit summaries]]
*links in [[Help:Special page|special pages]], for example [[Special:LongPages]]
*links made with [[Help:Link#External links|external link]] syntax instead of wikilinks, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example instead of the wikilink [[Example]] made with <code><nowiki>[[Example]]</nowiki></code>
*links from outside Wikipedia

===Fragments===
In the case of links to [[Help:Section|sections]] or other [[Help:anchors|anchors]] (that is: [[URI fragment]]s), the precise target is not shown. Furthermore, "What links here" cannot list the backlinks of a specific section/anchor only. For instance, it is not possible to search for a links specifically to the section called '''Bar''' in a page called '''Foo''' by searching for '''Foo#Bar''' on the "What links here" page. Nor will searching for '''Foo''' on the "What links here" page tell you which links link to which sections in '''Foo'''. This is an unfortunate limitation, as it limits the ability to see if links need to be changed (or [[Template:anchor|anchors]] need to be created matching the old section names) when a section's name is changed.

Workarounds:
* Typically, this type of link can be detected with an insource search, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=linksto%3A%22foo%22%20insource%3A%2F%5C%5B%5C%5B%22foo%22%5C%23%22bar%22(%5C%5D%5C%5D%7C%5C%7C)%2Fi&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1&ns1=1 (note that this method will not catch all possible permutations of a section link, if used naively).
* Since the "What links here" page ''does'' list redirects to a sections in the page, another possible workaround is making a new title that redirects to a particular section, and encouraging people to make links to the redirect rather than the section. For instance, making a '''Bar (Foo)''' page that redirects to '''Foo#Bar'''. An additional benefit to this is that if the title of the '''Bar''' section on the '''Foo''' page ever changes, all pages that link to '''Bar (Foo)''' will link to the correct place once the redirect target of '''Bar (Foo)''' is updated.
* Another possibility is to use [[Help:Linksearch|Linksearch]] to detect section links, but here editors would have to add hidden external links, as linksearch only detects links made with the external link syntax.

===Backlinks===
As mentioned, backlinks which have not yet been linked are excluded from the results. An [[User:Lourdes/Backlinks|alternative script]] exists to search out such pages.

Also note that if a page's links change because of a change in a [[Help:Template|template]], the backlinks for that page are [[mw:Manual:Job queue#Updating links tables when a template changes|not updated immediately]], but via the job queue.

==Redirects==

The What links here report will list a [[Help:Redirect|redirect]] to a page, and indented under it any incoming links to the page that go through that redirect.  

For a double redirect, the indent is double, and any incoming wikilinks to the page that go through the two intervening redirects are then shown triple indented. Although they are shown, double redirects are cleaned up; any triple redirects will become doubles, so triple redirects are not shown, just doubles.

For a demonstration, see the [[Special:WhatLinksHere/Help:What_links_here|What links here]] report for this page.
Double redirects and redirects to sections are set up at [[/demo rdcheck]].

=== Only show incoming redirects ===
To only show incoming redirects, select both "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links".

To hide incoming redirects, click on "Hide redirects".

==Transclusions==
{{see also|#Workaround to hide transcluded links}}

The backlinks list includes [[WP:Transclusion|transclusions]] of the current page.

It also includes links which exist on certain pages because the page transcludes another page (template). For example, if page A transcludes template B, and B contains a link to C (not contained within <nowiki><</nowiki>noinclude> tags), then the link to C will appear on page A, and A will be listed among the backlinks of C.

It is possible that a page contains a link to C because it transcludes a template even though the template does not itself contain such a link (the link may be produced in the template wikitext by the application of various [[Help:Parser function|parser functions]], rather than explicitly). In this case the template will not show up in the backlinks of C, although pages on which it is transcluded will (if they have the links to C). It may be convenient to make the template appear on the list by placing a link to C on the template, within <nowiki><</nowiki>noinclude> tags.

==Number of links==
The "What links here" page does not display how many backlinks exist in total. The number of links displayed at one time is limited – initially to 50, although there are links to change this to certain other values. (Different values can be obtained by editing the URL resulting from clicking these links, but the maximum possible value is 5,000.)

==Extensions and programming==
=== Number of backlinks ===
The "What links here" page body has selector body.page-Special_Whatlinkshere, so for example we can use the [[Help:Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] <code>body.page-Special_Whatlinkshere ul { list-style: decimal }</code> to number the backlinks.

It is possible to obtain the list of backlinks (with additional information) programmatically using the MediaWiki API. For information on how to do this, see the [[mw:API:Backlinks|API documentation]].

=== Semantic relations ===

With the extension [[Semantic MediaWiki]] (SMW) links are categorized by specifying relations. For a given relation the backlinks of a page can be produced in-page. A series of queries, one for each relation (which seems cumbersome but can be put in a template like [http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Template:Ask]), provides an in-page list of backlinks sorted by relation. Moreover, forward links and attributes of the resulting pages can also be provided, and also backlinks of backlinks.

=== DPL method ===

A simpler extension that can embed backlinks (without the semantic functionality) is [[mw:Dynamic Page List|Dynamic Page List]]. '''EXAMPLE NEEDED'''

=== Suppress links ===

"(← links | edit)" can be suppressed by placing the following in Common.css
<syntaxhighlight lang="css">
.mw-whatlinkshere-tools{
    display:none;
}</syntaxhighlight>

'''However, "(transclusion)" can't be suppressed with that CSS. Maybe with CSS# positional-selection.'''

=== Transclusion of WhatLinksHere ===
{{anchor|Transclusion}}
[[Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page]] can be transcluded with <code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page}}</nowiki></code> which produces:
{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page}}

If you want to exclude redirects, you can use <code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page|hideredirs=1}}</nowiki></code>. There are three params you can use (in any order, or combination) for hiding redirects, transclusions, or normal links:
*<code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page|hideredirs=1}}</nowiki></code>
*<code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page|hidetrans=1}}</nowiki></code>
*<code><nowiki>{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Example page|hidelinks=1}}</nowiki></code>

=== Workaround to hide transcluded links ===

It is a known limitation that there is no way to filter out pages that link to the current page via a transcluded template. This limits the usefulness of "What links here" in cases where a page is linked to from a widely transcluded navbox. A workaround is to perform a [[Help:Searching|search]] using the [[Help:Searching#insource:|insource]] parameter, e.g. use <code><nowiki>insource:/\[\[[Ff]oo/</nowiki></code> to search for articles that contain links to [[Foo]] (either direct links, <code><nowiki>[[Foo]]</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>[[foo]]</nowiki></code>, or [[Help:Piped link|piped links]], <code><nowiki>[[Foo|label]]</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>[[foo|label]]</nowiki></code>). A user script, [[User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js]], simplifies this process by providing a link to automatically perform the search.

== Examples ==
*[[Special:WhatLinksHere/James Fowler]]
*[[Special:WhatLinksHere/Help:What links here]]
*[[Special:WhatLinksHere/Gradient Descent]]

==See also==
*[[Template:What links here]], a template to generate links to [[Special:WhatLinksHere]] with parameters
*[[User:Lourdes/Backlinks]], script to search out all unlinked backlinks
*[[Help:Category#"Related Changes" with categories|"Related Changes" with categories]]
*[[Help:Searching#linksto:|Searching for pages with links to a given page, possibly with extra conditions]]
*[[Wikipedia:Database reports/Templates transcluded on the most pages|Templates transcluded on the most pages]]
*[https://templatecount.toolforge.org/ Template transclusion count] for templates and modules
*[https://github.com/greencardamom/Backlinks-Watchlist Backlinks Watchlist], a Unix tool for monitoring changes to a page's backlinks.
*[https://github.com/greencardamom/Wikiget Wikiget], a unix tool to retrieve the full list of backlinks for page.

{{Wikipedia technical help|collapsed}}
[[Category:Wikipedia link help|What Links Here]]
[[Category:Wikipedia sidebar help|What Links Here]]
[[Category:Wikipedia interface help|What Links Here]]