Template talk:BillboardURLbyName

Lists Poets of the Fall but provides no information
Apparently it did at one time because the reference is not a dead link, but returns no useful information. The Billboard Artist Link, Poets of the Fall returns "Sorry, Couldn't find anything for this artist". and the Google search, "written by Chris True for All Music Guide", seems to copy the Wikipedia citation. I'm deleting these references from Poets of the Fall, but I am wondering if the BOT that replaced all of the Billboard citations replaced dead link citations that are now not dead links, but rather links returning no information. Softtest123 (talk) 17:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

What's wrong with this URL?
Why does it keep saying it's wrong?  Lazy Bastard  Guy  04:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

No longer works
Seems to go straight to the artist page instead of the chart page. May need fixing. Hzh (talk) 19:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

The new URL for Billboard artist chart pages doesn't use artist IDs or chart numbers anymore. Using the example for Shakira and the Hot 100 from this template's documentation page, the URL takes this form: https://www.billboard.com/music/shakira/chart-history/hot-100. Don't know if there could be an issue with the use of hyphens in artist and chart names. The Single chart and Album chart templates have already been updated, if that makes a difference. Thanks. -- Star cheers peaks news lost wars Talk to me 21:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you able to fix the code in the /sandbox? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:13, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I got it to work as long as the artist and chart names are both entered and entered correctly. For example, there's the Hot Country Songs chart, but the chart parameter would have to be entered as "country-songs". If just artist is entered, the template would need to make the chart parameter optional so one can get the URL https://www.billboard.com/music// . The "bio=true" parameter isn't necessary anymore. -- Star cheers peaks news lost wars Talk to me 02:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * How do those other two templates (Single chart and Album chart) do it? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:32, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Those use specific naming convention for each chart with each use of the chart name of the URL written into the code. Example:, by entering "BillboardHot100" with Michael Jackson as artist it will go to the same page as this template would by entering  . Neither should require use of Template:BillboardID or Template:BillboardChartNum any longer. I'd like this template to work whether someone just enters the artist name or combination of artist and chart name:
 * for https://www.billboard.com/music/Jennifer-Lopez
 * for https://www.billboard.com/music/Jennifer-Lopez/chart-history/dance-club-play-songs
 * I guess if there were a way to set up the chart parameter to accept multiple possibilities for the same thing, "chart=Hot 100", "chart=hot 100", "chart=billboardhot100", "chart=Billboard Hot 100", but that's way beyond my capabilities. -- Star cheers peaks news lost wars Talk to me 23:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

It was easy enough to omit the /chart-history if no chart parameter is defined. See Template:BillboardURLbyName/testcases for examples. Note that all does not work now. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:43, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to find out what articles use the "chart=all" parameter with this template. I'd be happy to fix them so errors don't occur in those ones in which they're being utilized, even if it may take some time. -- Star cheers peaks news lost wars Talk to me 01:48, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 25 January 2019
As noted above, this template has been thoroughly broken for a while. I would like the content at Template:BillboardURLbyName/sandbox (as of my recent edit on 01/25/2019) to be merged in. I think the test cases demonstrate how the current template is broken, and how the sandbox version is not. (Users Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars and MSGJ already did the heavy lifting in fixing the template. I just made one further minor fix.) Dindon~enwiki (talk) 23:14, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done -- / Alex /21  02:08, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 February 2019
Can it please be noted on the display of this template that the majority of chart names need to be in lowercase otherwise billboard.com defaults to showing the Hot 100 (hot-100) results if "More Chart History" is clicked? For an example, visit https://www.billboard.com/music/Jennifer-Lopez/chart-history/Billboard-200 (notice the capital "B" in the chart name, "Billboard 200"). If "More Chart History" at the end is clicked, the website defaults to displaying the Hot 100 chart history. Whereas if https://www.billboard.com/music/Jennifer-Lopez/chart-history/billboard-200 (note the lower-case "b") is visited and "More Chart History" is clicked, it properly takes one to the next page for the Billboard 200 results. For another example, take https://www.billboard.com/music/metallica/chart-history/Hot-Mainstream-Rock-Tracks. Clicking "More Chart History" also takes one to the Hot 100 results, whereas clicking "More Chart History" on the lower-case https://www.billboard.com/music/metallica/chart-history/hot-mainstream-rock-tracks gives one the desired next page of results of Mainstream Rock chart peaks. I don't know where editors have gotten it from that any capitals are needed for the artist name or chart name, but they aren't. However, capitalising/decapitalising the artist's name(s) doesn't matter, only the chart name does. Thanks.  Ss  112   05:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I made some edits at Template:BillboardURLbyName/sandbox which should fix this issue (by lowercasing chart and artist in the generated URL). The test cases should demonstrate that it's working appropriately, and fixes the issue with uppercase chart names. As you say, I don't think lowercasing the artist as well is strictly necessary, but I threw it in because a) I think it looks a bit cleaner, and b) anecdotally, I've found that URLs using artist names with uppercase letters can sometimes take a long time to load (though I could just be imagining it). Colin M (talk) 06:17, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Nice work, . – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Anomalies in url
I have noticed the same ref error at Kodachrome (song) and Why Can't This Be Love where the template is used. It says 'line feed character in URL at pos 498'. As the markup does not use a conventional URL I think this might be an anomaly at the template? Can anyone assist please? Thanks. Eagleash (talk) 14:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Note It looks as though an intervening edit has fixed it. Eagleash (talk) 16:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit request 11/21/2021
Billboards site seems to have been recently overhauled, and the URLs have been changed so that "music" has been replaced with "artist'" &mdash; for an example, see https://www.billboard.com/music/julien-baker/chart-history/TLP, which now leads to a 404 error page; the updated URL format is https://www.billboard.com/artist/julien-baker/chart-history/tlp. Specifically, I am asking that...

https://www.billboard.com/ music /

...be changed to...

https://www.billboard.com/ artist /

(emphasis mine). --Dylan620 (talk) 00:59, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅.  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 09:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * thank you so much! --Dylan620 (talk) 14:43, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It's my pleasure!  Paine  17:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Invalid URLs
I just noticed much of the older usage of this template became invalid quite a while ago when billboard changed URLs. In fact, even the examples at the documentation page don't work. We had a bot fix thousands of such URLs, but URLs using this template were never fixed. --Muhandes (talk) 11:07, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I corrected the documentation page, but correcting the usage itself is a massive undertaking. --Muhandes (talk) 11:22, 2 March 2022 (UTC)