Template:Citation Style documentation/url

• url: The URL of an online location where the text of the publication named by title can be found; cannot be used if title is wikilinked. If applicable, the link may point to the specific page(s) referenced. Use isbn or oclc to provide neutral search links for books, and remove tracking parameters from URLs, e.g. #ixzz2rBr3aO94 or ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=…&utm_term=…&utm_campaign=…. (For linking to pages in PDF files or in Google Books, see Wikipedia:PAGELINKS.) Invalid URLs, including those containing spaces, will result in an error message.
  • access-date: The full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to resolve successfully and support the text in the article; do not wikilink. Requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. Not required for linked documents that do not change, such as links to published research papers or published books. For example, access-date is required for online sources, such as personal websites, that do not have a publication date; see Wikipedia:Citing sources § Web pages. Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.
  • url-access: See § Access indicators for url-holding parameters.
  • archive-url: The URL of an archived snapshot of a web page, typically used to refer to services such as Internet Archive (see Using the Wayback Machine) and archive.today (see Using archive.today); requires archive-date and url. By default (overridden by |url-status=live) the archived link is displayed first, with the original link at the end. Alias: archiveurl.
    • archive-date: The archive service's snapshot-date, displayed with "archived from the original on date" prepended; use the same format as other access- and archive- dates in the citations. This does not necessarily have to be the same format that was used for citing publication dates. Do not wikilink; templated dates are discouraged. Alias: archivedate.
    • archive-format: The file format of the work referred to by archive-url, such DOC or XLS; displayed in parentheses after the archive snapshot link (HTML is implied and should not be specified). PDF is auto-detected and need not be specified; does not change the external link icon, except for PDFs. Note: External link icons do not include alt text, thus they do not add file format information for the visually impaired, but this is not a concern for PDFs because the auto-detection will add "(PDF)" as descriptive text. (See Using |format=.)
  • url-status: A control parameter to select one of url or archive-url to link title to; requires url and archive-url. Use {{Dead link}} to mark dead URLs when there is no archive service snapshot link.

    Accepts multiple keywords:

    • dead – Default condition when url-status is undefined or value is null; links title to archive-url.
    • live – Links title to url; use when original source is preemptively archived with an archive service while it still resolves.
    • deviated – Use when url still resolves but the content no longer supports the text in the wiki article; links title to archive-url.
    • unfit – Use when source page contains elements related to vice (gambling, pornography), advertising or other unsuitable content; links title to archive-url and suppresses url in the rendered article. If an entire domain is unsuitable, consider using the usurped keyword instead.
    • usurped – Use when the domain in url no longer serves its original intent, particularly when the domain has been (mis)appropriated by other entities such as vice, reseller and advertising sites; links title to archive-url and suppresses links to url in the rendered page.

• format: The file format of the work referred to by url, such as DOC or XLS; displayed in parentheses after title. For media formats, use type; HTML is implied and should not be specified, while PDF is auto-detected and need not be specified. Does not change the external link icon, except for PDFs. Note: External link icons do not include alt text, thus they do not add file format information for the visually impaired, but this is not a concern for PDFs because the auto-detection will add "(PDF)" as descriptive text. (See Using |format=.)

URLs must begin with a supported URI scheme. http:// and https:// will be supported by all browsers; however, ftp://, gopher://, irc://, ircs://, mailto:, news: and tel: may require additional extensions or an external application and should normally be avoided. Bare IPv6 host names are currently not supported.

If URLs in citation template parameters contain certain characters, then they will not display and link correctly: those characters need to be percent-encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. To percent-encode the URL, replace the following characters with:

Character	(space)	"	'	<	>	[	]	{	|	}
Encoding	%20	%22	%27	%3C	%3E	%5B	%5D	%7B	%7C	%7D

Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; however, unencoded multiples of them will be parsed as italic or bold markup. Single curly closing braces also do not need to be encoded; however, an unencoded pair will be parsed as the double closing braces for the template transclusion.