Help talk:What links here

Advertising removed
I have removed from the end of this page, which produces the following advertising link. --Philcha (talk) 14:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC) ""

Meta:Help:What links here authors and history
An old History list from November 2006 used to be here. The purpose was unstated and unclear. For those who are in need of the old History, or a current one, go to the article at Meta:Help:What links here and use the standard method for reviewing the History. Pknkly (talk) 00:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Question. How do we hide excessive linkage?
Not sure if this has come up anywhere, but I noticed that links created in templates for navigation boxes (template:navbox) are reproduced in "what links here" for every single article in which the template is used. This can lead to an inordinate number of links, making it impossible to distinguish between articles which actually refer to the article in question and articles which link to it only by virtue of a template that does it for them. Is there any way to work around this? The template is all that matters in "what links here". Cavila (talk) 13:55, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * There are two, what I will call, "filtering input boxes" that are meant to limit the list. The first box, called What links here has the Namespace limit option that has the default "All".  The second "filtering input box", called Filters, give the ability to hide specific types of links (by selecting all three "hide" options you can hide the entire list.  Hope you can find these "filtering input boxes" at the top of the list.  Did using a combination of the filtering options get you the results? Pknkly (talk) 16:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your quick response. I know about the namespace/filtering options and initially expected that "transclusion" - which if I understand correctly, includes using a template in an article - is what was causing the problem. But that option appears to apply only if the page (usually a template) is itself transcluded rather than the destination (usually the article) of one or several transcluded pages. Apparently, the problem comes down this. Once a template has been transcluded onto an article, the text becomes part of the article in such a way that the "what links here" tool, e.g. used in combination with the "(Article)" namespace, does not distinguish between article text and transcluded text. I hope I'm making sense here. Cavila (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you do make sense. From what I read at Transclusion the purpose of the a transclusion to to have updated text become part of many articles.  To me it sounds like a short cut for copying from one source and pasting into many articles.  So, to me it makes sense that the "What links here" finds all links no matter how they were added to the article.  Your statement "does not distinguish between article text and transcluded text" makes it sound like you expect transcluded text to be treated differently by the program.  However, the "What links here" program may be designed from a readers perspective (I believe the technical term would be the rendered mode) and not the editing mode where we see the code.  You may have a good enhancement to the "What links here" program.  Pknkly (talk) 01:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the way it is set up now, both readers and editors will have to find out for themselves whether any article "which links here" is at all relevant to their purposes. With navigation boxes like the one I created recently, they can be like needles in a haystack. Then perhaps it would be a good idea to have those pages listed as a class subordinate to the template (indented), pretty much in the same way as pages linking to a redirect are shown (indented). Or else an option "hide transcluded text". Of course, provided that either of these suggestions is a technically viable solution. Take it to MediaWiki? Cavila (talk) 07:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Taking it to Media Wiki sounds right, but I don't know if that is the process. Perhaps User:Kotniski can give directions.  I asked Kotniski, who just made some extensive changes to the article, to give us his input to your last queston about taking it to Media Wiki. Pknkly (talk) 05:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And here I am;) But sorry, I can't help you much - it sounds like a question (or rather a request) to the developers. You could try raising it at WP:VPT (the technical village pump), but generally requests to add functions to the software are made at Bugzilla (and don't expect a quick response there).--Kotniski (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. At least I know I don't need to plough through other pages to look for a solution that doesn't exist unless the software is adjusted. The functionality would be a welcome addition, but I can live without it, so never mind that now. Cavila (talk) 18:11, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I have the same question. Sometimes an article of very narrow significance is included in a navigation box that in turn is used on hundreds of articles. For the original article, it would be very helpful to know which other articles genuinely discuss and refer to it, but instead "What Links Here" unfortunately just lists every article in the greater field. (Presently the only solution would be to vandalise the template and wait for the effect, or better, create a novel redirect for template use only.) It would be great if What Links Here could automatically display nav-boxes exactly like redirects (i.e., thread articles below the template if they only transclude the link rather than linking from their main bodies. This might be implemented by having the low-level navbox template automatically rewrite links, adding a prefix say, such as to be distinguishable by W.L.H. but still redirect to the same targets).

In my personal opinion, even if a page has thousands of links via a navbox, it is still an orphan if almost no other articles explicitly mention the topic in their main text; I would personally view such cases as candidates to strongly consider merging with others from the same category. Anyway, has anything happened since the question was first raised? Cesiumfrog (talk) 05:38, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Little or nothing has changed; See Help_talk:What_links_here below. - Rod57 (talk) 16:38, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

When I first browsed pages that link to a video game called Genshin Impact, viewing no more than 500 links in one page, there were not many of them. But now, there is an excessive amount of talk pages that do not actually link to this game. I don't want that. It is WAY too tedious. Homechallenge55 (talk) 23:04, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You can use the "Namespace" box at top of Special:WhatLinksHere/Genshin Impact to only show articles. The many talk pages do contain the link but only via a partial transclusion of Good article nominations/Topic lists/Video games. To see it at Talk:SCUMM, click show at "WikiProject Video games" and then "Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks". User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js can find pages which only link in their own source and not via a template. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Count what links here?
Is there a way simply to find out how many sites link here? Right now the only way seems to be to continue clicking the next button and counting until they are exhausted. Surely with the power of technology we could have a better way. I think this would be very useful for understanding the "internal notability" of pages (as well as comparing page names which redirects to see if a redirect is used far more often). Thanks, Sligocki (talk) 19:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes there is: info on link count API, Request URL, See also Mill 1 (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2021 (UTC)


 * You bring up a good point. The first bullet in the article, under the Overview section, says "The number of incoming links ..." but you get a list of articles instead of a number!  Perhaps you can make the suggestion for a change following the same process that we hope to discover above. Pknkly (talk) 05:20, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure there's a way of retrieving this number (perhaps using the API?) Ask at WP:VPT, someone there will know (and report back here so we can incorporate it into the help page!)--Kotniski (talk) 12:39, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response guys, I posted to the Village Pump, but there's been no concrete answer. Sounds like it might not be possible without actually counting all the links, but they suggest looking into a utility for finding disambig pages with the most incoming links. I contacted User:JaGa, I'll let you guys know how it goes. Cheers, -Sligocki (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've also just filed a request at Bugzilla,, though as I said above, Bugzilla requests tend not to get handled with any speed.--Kotniski (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, User:Dispenser had created a simple utility ~dispenser/cgi-bin/backlinkscount.py. It doesn't yet completely suit my needs, but it's definitely useful. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, looks simple but effective. Worth mentioning on this page I think. (I've just added a section which mentions it.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 404. Unfortunate but to be expected after 12 years I guess.Mill 1 (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

404 error??
Special:WhatLinksHere/Connecticut Route 2A is returning a 404 error. Any ideas as to why this would be happening? Connecticut Route 2A is a valid article that has existed for a long time. It does have a history of past page moves. --Orlady (talk) 17:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There seem to be a lot of 404 errors going on at the moment - see WP:VPT for more. I presume it's a general server thing.--Kotniski (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

how quickly is "what links here" refreshed?
I moved page foo to foo (song). I needed to fix the links on bar, buz, bac, etc... so that they link to foo (song) instead of simply foo. I have done so, and yet the pages bar, buz, bac, etc... are all still showing in the "what links here" search. How long should I wait before I look again? Also, bon was a template which linked to foo and was transcluded in many other pages. I have changed the template bon, to link to foo(song), and yet all the pages that have the template still show as linking to foo. I checked the template on those pages and it is linking correctly... what's going on? thanks. Cliff (talk) 02:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The job queue is mentioned at Help:What links here. It varies a lot how long it takes for the job queue to update WhatLinksHere after a template edit. If you have actually edited bar, buz, bac, ... directly and they no longer linked when they were saved (not even via a template at the time) then they should disappear from WhatLinksHere right away. Can you give a specific example where it didn't happen? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the primary place that was giving me problems was when I changed the template. We'll see what happens when the job queue comes around. Thanks again.Cliff (talk) 02:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's been 7 days. Surely the job queue is not that backed up. Most of the articles are still showing as linking to Edge of the Universe. I'd appreciate help in finding the offending links.Cliff (talk) 21:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * apparently it was...Cliff (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Whatever delayed it, it seems fixed now. Special:WhatLinksHere/Edge of the Universe only shows two pages and both of them really link to Edge of the Universe. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Coming back on this old topic. I'm experiencing the same problem. Changed a template last month, took about 20 days for the template change to be taken into account on the "What links here" page. Changed two templates again, just now (1 and 2). And again I notice they're not being taken into account. Any idea how long this might take (I assume 20 days is not normal), and/or how to force it to update? The fact that I used the "minor" flag for my updates, could that have caused it? Thanks, --Midas02 (talk) 02:25, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Order of links and reassurance for users about appearance of links
It appears that the order of the links list is from first created to most recently created page. Would this info be useful to add on the help page? Also, I ran across a user who thought it was some sort of mistake that WLH showed hits on bot maintenance pages, talk pages and the like and thought it was necessary to remove links on user talk pages to remove "false hits". Would it be helpful to provide some sort of reassurance that this is nothing to worry about (and remind again about how to use the filter)? Valfontis (talk) 19:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hiding transclusions (or something)
Without trawling through the long discussions above... is there, or is there not, a way to restrict "what links here" to listing all articles X, where X contains an actual, live, literal instance of SomeArticle, excluding articles X whose only link to SomeArticle where imported via a template?

Concrete example: Special:WhatLinksHere/Phineas_Gage has 110 entries (from articles only, hiding redirects), and I want to see what's said about him in those articles. But it turns out that maybe half or more of the articles listed in fact have no link to him at all except through their inclusion (or transclusion -- I never remember what's what on that) of (look under People in the box shown here) or any of several other project boxes or whatever, and those "links" are of no interest at all. It's a big pain to search through all the listed articles to find the subset that actually talk about Gage. The hide transclusions button on what links here doesn't seem to change the output -- isn't this supposed to do what I want?

Any thoughts on this? BTW, the External tools: Show redirects only link doesn't seem to work either. (And how would it be different from some combination of the three buttons higher up on the page?)

Thanks! EEng (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * "hide transclusions" hides pages where the target page is transcluded but not linked, as if a page contained   (no page contains this; articles are rarely transcluded). "hide transclusions" is usually only relevant for some templates. You can for example see the effect on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:OEIS. The feature you want does not exist but has often been requested. See for example Village pump (technical)/Archive 69 and 3241. The external tool works for me most of the time but can be slow and sometimes times out. See Village pump (proposals)/Archive 93 for the difference to the buttons. It shows additional information. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:10, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Apparently my WP login won't work at bugzilla so I'll say it here: All this stuff about parse trees and so on is unnecessary. The current functionality returns a superset of what's wanted. Fine. So some external tool can do what I've been doing manually: open each page and search for WantedPage or RedirectsToWantedPage . This would be slow and I imagine could be fooled by some syntactic overcleverness now and then, but at least would give the use what's wanted.  As it stands it's pretty much useless in many cases, particularly the ones you really need it for (important pages with many incoming links). EEng (talk) 02:16, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * P.S. Could someone at least modify Special:WhatLinksHere to warn editors about this, so more and more don't have to waste their time figuring out what's going on -- particularly that Hide Transclusions does something wanted by nobody, and does not do something wanted by everybody. EEng (talk) 02:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The external tool is only for showing redirects. It doesn't help to find links which are in the page source as opposed to a transcluded template. Explaining the precise meaning of "hide transclusions" on WhatLinksHere pages seems too detailed. That's what help pages are for. MediaWiki:Whatlinkshere-summary (currently blank) is displayed at top of WhatLinksHere. I suggest it's created with a link to Help:What links here. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Though I appreciate your replying, you seem not to be giving due care to understand what I said. (1) I wasn't talking about the external tool. (2) I wasn't suggesting giving the "precise meaning" of hide transclusions (which apparently is useless anyway) but rather that text near the button give a quick warning that "If you're hoping this e.g. Hides links introduced to the page via templates, it doesn't" -- this should save lots of people much wasted time EEng (talk) 23:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your post said "So some external tool can do what I've been doing manually". I assumed you were referring to the external tool. If you meant another hypothetical external tool which doesn't exist now then your formulation confused me. Your proposed text "If you're hoping this e.g. Hides links introduced to the page via templates, it doesn't" is exactly what I would call too detailed for an interface page with many options. Many users will already know or not care what that particular option does. If people want to know more about the features then they can click a help link. I have created MediaWiki:Whatlinkshere-summary with a link to Help:What links here. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Then just remove hide transclusions which as you say exists for a nonexistent situation. At least this way people won't have their time wasted.  Honestly, the amount of time spent xplaining why a dumb situation is really ok is amazing. EEng (talk) 00:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It's part of the MediaWiki software. It would require developers to remove or change it. I'm just a volunteer editor (and administrator), but I do sometimes use "hide transclusions" on templates for existing situations. The place to contact the developers with a software request is and not this talk page, but I see you cannot be bothered to create a bugzilla account. You are preaching to the choir here. Unlike you, I (Jens K Andersen) have actually posted to 3241 in 2011 and suggested exactly the feature you want. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 2016: Still a problem - See Help_talk:What_links_here below. - Rod57 (talk) 17:06, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

External tools: Show redirects only
Where did "External tools: Show redirects only" go? I don't use if often, but it is useful. I see from the discussion at Village pump (proposals)/Archive 93 that there was a discussion about getting rid of it, but the consensus was to keep. Anybody know what the story is or where it can now be found? Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 19:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It was removed 3 June because it was broken. The tool http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py says: "Good example http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=BioShock". Clicking that link gives me an error so it appears it's still broken. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response and the explanation. SchreiberBike talk 22:34, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * For the record, the tool was reinstated 17 August [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Linkshere&diff=568924555&oldid=558102528] and also works currently. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:00, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Reciprocal link check tool?
Is there a tool to that compares forward links and backlinks? For example, I'd like to know which of the pages that United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court links to do and don't link back to it. Input would be a page name, output would be, say, two columns: forward links and backlinks. Links would be in one column, the other, or both. (Or more simply, a formatted diff of a list of forward links and a list of backlinks.) --Elvey (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2014
Special:WhatLinksHere/Perumalbala

Perumalbala (talk) 13:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:09, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

File with thousands of links to it
I don't know where else to post this; it seems that the Talk page of every article about anynything to do with any castle, fort, fortification, trench, moat, battlement, blockhouse, bunker, keep, donjon, stockade, pallisade, schloss, barricade, barracks, sally-port, the Great Wall of China, the Rock of Gibraltar, chateau and air raid shelter on Wikipedia (~ 6,000 articles) links to, presumably because of a tag somewhere on one talk page, or on the file itself. Is there any way to fix this? YSSYguy (talk) 06:31, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The listing is correct. The image is part of the "Military history" project banner when the "Fortifications" task force is selected, so all those talk pages do display this image. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:18, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Article with thousands of spurious links
When I hit "What links here" for Saint Leonard Catholic Church (Madison, Nebraska), I get a list that appears to include the talk page of every article with a WikiProject Nebraska tag. This doesn't appear to be the case with other articles on National Register of Historic Places sites in Nebraska (e.g. Dowse Sod House). Any idea what's caused this, and how it can be fixed? Thanks. Ammodramus (talk) 02:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The article is mentioned in Template:WikiProject United States/Todo, which is part of the talk page banner for these articles. To see the link, expand the section "WikiProject Nebraska To-do". -- John of Reading (talk) 05:52, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, J of R. I assume that now that the article's passed its GA review, it'll be automatically dropped from that template within a day or two.  Thanks for finding this; it would've taken me a long, long time to figure it out.  Ammodramus (talk) 11:43, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Poking around a bit more, it's actually listed at WikiProject Nebraska/tasks/Under review/GAN, and that page is maintained by a bot. So yes, this should sort itself out eventually. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Personally I think that spamming 'Todo' lists like this is something we should have a guideline against. The purpose of Wikiproject tags is to aid navigation, not create a bully pulpit to try to get people all over Wikipedia to do what you want.  We should either limit what is in them, or strip them all the way down to a simple category. Wnt (talk) 16:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Show redirects only
The "show redirects only" tool no longer works, see http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py, please remove the link or replace it with a different tool TheChampionMan1234 08:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I have removed it.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Linkshere&diff=615139280&oldid=599196593] There doesn't appear to be a replacement. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Damn. This was very useful for maintaining redirects to sections. --NE2 19:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The disappearance of dispenser's tools is discussed at Village pump (technical)/Archive 128. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * There is currently an operational version at Labs so I have readded a link to there.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Linkshere&diff=next&oldid=615139280] PrimeHunter (talk) 00:24, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * This link need to be changed back (to toolserver.org) to comply with WMF privacy policy. — Dispenser 17:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Default to not showing transclusions
Is there any way to control what is shown when a "What links here" page is shown? For example, is there a way for me to have a link that immediately takes the user to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/PAGENAME&hidetrans=1&hideredirs=1 so that transclusions and redirects are hidden? At the moment my best guess is to have an "external link" but I was wondering if wiki markup allows for an internal link to have the options specified on the end? Mrendell (talk) 13:00, 7 July 2014 (UTC)


 * You can place this in to keep the old link to "What links here" and add a new saying "What pages link" (or anything else you write below):

$( document ).ready( function { mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', mw.util.wikiGetlink( 'Special:WhatLinksHere/' ) + mw.config.get( 'wgPageName' ) + '?hidetrans=1&hideredirs=1', 'What pages link', 't-whatpageslink', 'Hide transclusions and redirects', null, '#t-recentchangeslinked' ); });


 * You can hide the old "What links here" by also placing this in :


 * 1) t-whatlinkshere {display: none;}
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 11:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 November 2014
70.55.111.150 (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Please note that this page is only for discussing improvements to Help:What links here, so you may be in the wrong place. If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also obtain consensus to back up your request. - Arjayay (talk) 18:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as you have not requested a change

Semi-protected edit request on 5 January 2015
From wood to glass, 618 were not the only VGS to get the Vanguard (ASK21 ) 645VGS then based at RAF Catterick got 5 of the airframes for training evaluation. I was based there at the time and was one of the evaluating A2 instructors, later converting to the Viking 86.163.202.17 (talk) 22:35, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:41, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:What links here. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:13, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Number of linking pages
It would be very neat if this special page besides listing out the articles would also count them for you. I believe it would be easy for implementing and helpful for. ex when doing robotic corrections of links. Wesalius (talk) 21:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * There is an old request from 2005 at T6394. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Articles missing from What Links Here
For example Shashmaqam links to Feudal which is a redirect to Feudalism. Shashmaqam correctly shows in the WLH for Feudal, but is missing from the WLH for Feudalism, even though other second-level links for Feudal show up in the Feudalism WLH. In fact I've identified over 500 articles that are not showing up in the Feudalism article by using the MediaWiki API and finding the full list of backlinks that way. -- Green  C  03:04, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thread moved to Village Pump (technical). -- Green  C  03:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 July 2015
Moon Light Productions India (talk) 11:30, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No request Cannolis (talk) 11:44, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2015
Mr firdaus (talk) 04:13, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Stickee (talk) 04:52, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 July 2015
Sanjay bhushna (talk) 07:03, 20 July 2015 (UTC) Raja Babu               Manjul THakur         Bhojpuri          P.R.O> Dulara                  Rajkumar R Pandey      Bhojpuri          P.R.O.

If you want to suggest a change, please request this on the talk page of the relevant article in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 11:07, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * ❌ as you are in the wrong place, since this page is only to discuss improvements to Help:What links here.

How many links?
Does anyone have any information about how many links are stored in the enwiki-latest-pagelinks.sql table by Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcg2015 (talk • contribs) 18:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Issue with moved pages
When moving page Foo1 to Foo2, Foo1 appears in Special:WhatLinksHere/Foo2 but Talk:Foo1 does not appear in Special:WhatLinksHere/Talk:Foo2. For example, Address Na(No Address) appears in Special:WhatLinksHere/Address Na (No Address) but Talk:Address Na(No Address) does not appear in Special:WhatLinksHere/Talk:Address Na (No Address). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:08, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * A null edit of Talk:Address Na(No Address) fixed it. I examined some cases at Special:Log/Move and many were already redirects so it looks like a delay in updating link tables. See also Village pump (technical)/Archive 141 where you previously posted. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be great if the null edit process could be automated or built-in because it definitely causes problems. The same thing happens when a vandal blanks a page and ClueBot restores 30 seconds later -- some of the backlinks disappear and might take days to re-appear. Score: 1 for vandals, 0.5 for ClueBot. -- Green  C  13:53, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

OOUI
Special:WhatLinksHere now uses OOUI. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 20:26, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Discussed at Village pump (technical) and apparently about to be reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

We need a way to hide/show links from templates
Default behaviour should surely be to list the few templates that 'link here' (rather than the hundreds of pages that include the templates) ? Has this been proposed/accepted/rejected(why?) as an enhancement request ? Where would we search/create bug/enhancement requests ? - Rod57 (talk) 14:32, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a frequently requested feature. Here are some of the requests:


 * Help desk/Archives/2016 September 7
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 147
 * Teahouse/Questions/Archive 328
 * Help desk/Archives/2015 March 25
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 139
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 132
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 132
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 131
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 126
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 122
 * Village pump (proposals)/Archive 104
 * Village pump (technical)/Archive 69
 * Help talk:What links here
 * Help desk/Archives/2009 June 20
 * Help desk/Archives/2012 May 9
 * Help desk/Archives/2011 January 18
 * Help desk/Archives/2008 February 25
 * T3392
 * T5241
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 14:42, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. and I found one from 2006 : Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_S.
 * Seems lots of people want a change/enhancement. ...
 * T3392 seems to have been rejected ~2007 as too difficult. Very disappointing. - Rod57 (talk) 15:34, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * T5241 says "open low" but sounds like technically difficult due to current database design. How do we raise the priority and get it/alternatives investigated in more detail ?
 * My use case is when splitting an article I need to check what links to the old name - in my case Sodium-cooled fast reactor A search only shows 81 but what links here shows nearer 250 (due mainly to the nuclear fission template from the nuclear technology template. - Maybe I'll just stick with the old name and use a hatnote. - Rod57 (talk) 15:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Also T14396. Open and unassigned. - Rod57 (talk) 16:18, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Solution to hide links from templates
Maybe a dbpedia query would do it? fgnievinski (talk) 02:50, 7 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I found a workaround: use PetScan, click on the "Templates&links" tab, enter the target page in the field "Links to - Any of these pages" (including redirects), and finally enter the offending template in field "Has none of these templates" (without typing the "Template:" prefix) -- and voila! =D fgnievinski (talk) 03:02, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Bummer, not quite: it'll only show pages that necessarily do not include the template. fgnievinski (talk) 03:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Another idea would be counting backlinks: pages that have two or more of the target page will have one link from the template transclusion and another link from the body of article. fgnievinski (talk) 03:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 September 2016
Rk merutha (talk) 11:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC) hello friends this article tale you some interesting fact about my village temple "Maa jaldevi ". is the temple near about my village Sansera. the temple main point is the temple half of part in water and mostly time the water surround us and the temple is in village talab(pound). My village Pound is 3km width and .75 km height

hello friends this article tale you some interesting fact about my village temple "Maa jaldevi ". is the temple near about my village Sansera. the temple main point is the temple half of part in water and mostly time the water surround us and the temple is in village talab(pound). My village Pound is 3km width and .75 km height
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Also, please place your edit request at the page you refer, not on this help talk. — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 19:47, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Community wishlist for What links here
JFYI: there are 4 proposals related to "What links here" in the current community wishlist that you can vote for here: 2016 Community Wishlist Survey.

They are:
 * "Enhanced "What links here" for sections" (especially useful when sections are renamed!)
 * "Hiding links through templates in "what links here" results"
 * "Cross-wiki What links here"
 * "Fix the bug where pages used by #ifexist show up in Special:WhatLinksHere"

--Fixuture (talk) 01:15, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Restricting count to links to sections
From what I gather, it's not possible to restrict Special:WhatLinksHere to links to a specific section (for example, listing the links to List of Donkey Kong characters, excluding the links just to List of Donkey Kong characters or another section). However I thought I might ask here if it is. It should be made possible if not; it has utility. -- E to the Pi times i ( talk  |  contribs ) 23:40, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Self-reply: It looks like I'm not observant; this is mentioned as a proposal in the section immediatly prior to this. -- E to the Pi times i ( talk  |  contribs ) 23:42, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I guess it's just something to try again when the the 2018 Community Wishlist Survey rolls around in November... -- E to the Pi times i ( talk  |  contribs ) 23:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The search finds three articles. The method isn't guaranteed to find all cases or to only return pages with the wanted section link. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:08, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (Much later comment:) There's actually now a tool called Rdcheck that can help with this. I pinged you because I thought you might have been interested in knowing about it since you replied to my original comments. eπi  ( talk  &#124;  contribs ) 21:50, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there a way to show "What here links to" that shows all forward-links for an article?
Hi all, is there a way to show "What here links to" that shows all forward-links for an article? Best regards DynamoDegsy (talk) 14:25, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know a convenient tool for humans. The API meant for programs can do it with  but it's not pretty and doesn't link the pages. For Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=parse&prop=links&page=Example. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I can easily add forward links to the unix shell command wikiget - let me know if you want. -- Green  C  17:10, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I've created a rather large number of Wikipedia articles, and I'd like to check where all the links are going to. Best regards. DynamoDegsy (talk) 17:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I just added forward links to wikiget, it was able to retrieve the 1200+ forward-links for Winter War in 1/10th of a second. Do you have unix experience/access? Just need to download a single script file wikiget.awk, run  one time. To get the forward-links run   To get it for those 2179 articles will need to write a small script. If all of this is beyond your experience, I can do it one-time and send you the output.  --  Green  C  18:04, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I have a little unix experience, but currently I have no unix access. If you could do it one-time at your convenience, I'd be most grateful. Best regards. DynamoDegsy (talk) 09:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

- here is the raw data User:DynamoDegsy/forlinks (1.3MB / 32,493 lines) .. looks like some long dashes didn't translate correctly in the cut and paste (fixed). If you'd prefer a wikitext list with bullets I can do that. -- Green  C  20:41, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Show redirects only
This tool seems to have disappeared from the "What links here" page a few days ago, though the tool itself still works.— TAnthonyTalk 15:09, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There was a MediaWiki change. Work is ongoing to restore the functionality. Discussed at MediaWiki talk:Linkshere. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks!— TAnthonyTalk 15:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems to be gone again? —24.191.101.189 (talk) 01:37, 4 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Clicking on "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links" appears to produce the desired list of redirects to the page. If correct, would it be good to add this to the "Redirects" section of the Help page? —24.191.101.221 (talk) 01:39, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Many false positives from What links here
A recent move of The Americans (2013 TV series) to The Americans left links to the former which I'm trying to fix to link directly to the latter. Simple enough. Except, when I go to what is now a redirect at The Americans (2013 TV series) and click on "What links here", it shows many pages, including, for example, Ally McBeal at the top, that don't link to anything having to do with this TV series, much less that particular link. Can someone explain this? Why are these pages showing up in the What links here output when they don't link there? Thanks. --В²C ☎ 17:16, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The Ally McBeal article uses the TCA Award for Outstanding New Program navbox, which had a link to The Americans (2013 TV series) until I edited it just now, so all articles displaying that navbox appeared in your list. I'm working through [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=The+Americans+%282013+TV+series%29&namespace=10 some other templates]; after I've edited those, it may still take a while for the system to update the links. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah! Good job, and THANKS!!! --В²C ☎ 20:37, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The link was still there at TCA Award for Outstanding New Program, so I fixed it. Thanks. --В²C ☎ 20:44, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

"Not possible" to transclude Special:WhatLinksHere?
"It is not possible to simply transclude a "Special:WhatLinksHere/Page_name" page, as only a certain sub-group of Special Pages can be transcluded" Then how am I doing it?


 * --2600:1700:1B0:BA0:7945:78CF:C1E6:D29F (talk) 02:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You are right, it has been possible since 2014. I have updated the help page. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2022
These are the four wishes related to WhatLinksHere on the Community Wishlist Survey 2022: If you want the MediaWiki developers to work on a proposal, vote for it! Dexxor (talk) 14:11, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Check if a page exists without populating WhatLinksHere (aka fix the long-standing #ifexist bug)
 * Allow filtering of WhatLinksHere to remove links from templates (would make #Workaround to hide transcluded links obsolete)
 * Include section links in WhatLinksHere
 * Get WhatLinksHere's lists in alphabetical order

How to only get links from page that link the article ?
Here are the pages that link to `Taormina` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Taormina&limit=500&hideredirs=1&hidetrans=1

It shows `Aristotle` on the top.

Inside Aristotle article there is no text containing Taormina.

I guess its because an source inside aristotle article is linking to taormina. How do I remove this page from the result without having to get the content of every page and filter out the ones that doesn't really link to the article ? Adelin-b (talk) 15:45, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The link is there (at least in the desktop version of the site) but hard to find. Click "show" near the bottom at "Links to related articles", then at "Ancient Greece" and "Greek colonisation" to see a box with the link Tauromenion in the "Sicily" group. It links to Taormina. See Help:What links here. My script User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js produces "Source links" on Taormina. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Most recent links (i.e., reverse order)
Is it possible to see the "what links here" in reverse order (i.e., what links here recently?). -Reagle (talk) 15:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Every page transcludes itself?
Is it the case that every page appears on its own What Links Here list as a transclusion? Why would this be? W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:31, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I think any article that uses the common citation templates such as cite web, cite news and so on will appear on its own What Links Here list. This is because the template code peeks at the whole article to look for templates such as use dmy dates, and the underlying MediaWiki software treats this as a transclusion. If the citation template finds a date-formatting instruction, it obeys it when formatting the dates in the citation. There's more on this at, for example, Template:Cite web. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:09, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! W. P. Uzer (talk) 21:18, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

"What links here" location moved
First line of this page says: Within the Toolbox section on the left-hand side of every page is a link labeled "What links here". However, "What links here" is now located under "Tools" at the top right corner of the page. I cannot edit this page to correct this detail. 1.145.138.116 (talk) 09:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I changed this; maybe someone can add details of non-standard views. W. P. Uzer (talk) 15:02, 6 July 2023 (UTC)