Help:Self link

A self link is a link to the page itself. It appears as bold text when the article is viewed ("self-link feature"). Examples:

• [[Help:Self link]] gives Help:Self link
• [[Help:Self link|piped self link]] gives piped self link

Self links are usually not recommended. One exception is within a text that is transcluded between several pages. Per the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles, you should not use self-links to make the article name bold in the first paragraph.

Self-link to a section

A link to a section of the same article, even from the same section, does not cause bold text and it works as a normal link: Help:Self link#Self-link to a section. Such links can also be written without the page name: #Self-link to a section. An automatically generated table of contents has links to sections on the page.

Indirect self links

An indirect self link is a link to a page that redirects back. In this case, the self-link feature does not work, even though the feature would be equally useful, this is demonstrated here:

• Self link

Also, when the prefix for the project itself is added (interwiki link style, but again linking to the page itself) the self-link feature does not work, this is demonstrated here:

• [[w:Help:Self link]] gives w:Help:Self link

Related changes feature

A self link for use with the "Related changes" feature only works if the link is to an existing or non-existing section. If it cannot be made useful as a link to a section, use a piped link with a blank space as label, e.g. [[Wikipedia:Self link#x| ]], showing up as " ".

See also

• Navigational templates
• Wikipedia:Avoid self-references
• Template:No selflink (a method to avoid the bold text on self links)