 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This essay addresses the overlink crisis and problems of overlinking Wikipedia pages with excessive wikilinks, especially in navboxes or infoboxes. For instructions on reducing or de-linking navboxes, see below: Convert large navboxes to navpage-link.
Overlinking is the characteristic of having too many internal wikilinks or hyperlinks to external webpages.[1] Editors should use an appropriate number of wikilinks in an article's text. In addition to providing relevant navigation opportunities, an appropriate number of blue links makes articles easier to read, especially in long paragraphs or sections.[2][3] To find out what an appropriate number of links is, consider reviewing Wikipedia:Featured articles on similar subjects. Most Featured Articles average one or two links per sentence in the lead, but some subjects may require more or fewer links than average.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
PCMagwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ The Influence of Hyperlinks on Reading on the Web: An Empirical Approach (PDF),
having links shown in blue text does not negatively impact reading.
- ^ Davis, Vicki (2014-05-23). Reinventing Writing: The 9 Tools That Are Changing Writing, Teaching, and Learning Forever. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-82108-3.
Long chunks of text without hyperlinks, white space, or graphics make a web page hard to read.