Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard

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This page is for reporting possible breaches of the external links guideline. Post questions here regarding whether particular external links are appropriate or compliant with Wikipedia's guidelines for external links. Provide links to the relevant article(s), talk page(s), and external links(s) that are being discussed. Questions about prominent websites like YouTube, IMDb, Twitter, or Find a Grave might be addressed with information from this guide. Sections older than 10 days archived by MiszaBot. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) If you mention specific editors, you must notify them. You may use {{subst:ELN-notice}} to do so.
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British Institute at Ankara

There were two external links in the top section of this article, to:

• British Academy International Research Institutes
• Heritage Turkey

They are now both in the External links section of the page. I removed the first one, but figured they could be useful to those looking to find out more about. Any opinions on the suitability of these links being in the article body would be great.

Thanks Harryb7 (talk) 14:29, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about it, but I wouldn't bother keeping that first link. All it does is give one sentence and a link to the official website for the subject. The second is a dead link (gives me a 404 error) and should be removed per WP:ELDEAD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. For some reason neither link is working as they should here. In my view both links are worth keeping but only in the external links section; the first gives information for all the other International Institutes too, and the second is a real link - I just copied it wrong! Harryb7 (talk) 16:52, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I really appreciate your edits to get the external links out of the body of the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:13, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

No external links in the body per WP:ELBODY unless there is a good reason. Additionally the second link is a subpage of the main website and as a result is not eligible per Wp:ELOFFICIAL as it would be accessible from the main site. Canterbury Tail talk 19:34, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know - will remove the second link. Just for future reference, what could constitute a good reason for having an external link in the article body? The policy wording is a bit vague Harryb7 (talk) 10:05, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Pretty much almost never. I think it would have to be contextual to the individual case. Canterbury Tail talk 14:50, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

The community generally accepts dictionary definitions (on Wiktionary), links to historical sources (on Wikisource), and a few standard texts, most notably the Bible (the most common template points to Wikisource by default) and IETF RFCs that we don't have an article about (usually in a list or table, rather than prose). I'd say that the general theme is that sources refer to something by a name or number, and you're just supposed know what that is, except that most people don't, so we're trying to give people a chance to understand. Usually, we can do that with a link to an article (e.g., Sonnet 149 – do you know which one this is, without looking? I don't), but when we don't/shouldn't have an article, and it's important for understanding the sentence, then we sometimes put in a link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Expired domain abuse — templifica.com redirects

Hi all — I've noticed a pattern that looks like expired domain abuse. Several Wikipedia articles cite external sources that now 301-redirect to templifica.com (a commercial Framer template shop):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_warning - ict-skywarn.org → templifica.com/framer-templates

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9D%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC - germans2franklincountyma.info → templifica.com/framer-templates

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietn%C3%A3 - thehuuvandan.org/vietpoet.html → templifica.com/framer-templates/mike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ourproject.org

And many, many others

The original domains appear to have been legitimate sources that lapsed and were acquired for SEO link-building. Could someone with rights review and act where possible? The templifica.com domain may also warrant blacklisting.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Templates Guardian (talk • contribs) 09:36, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this note, @Templates Guardian. Would you mind re-posting it to Wikipedia:Link rot/URL change requests? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Ext link to official website of 1win

Wikipedia moderators,

Will you consider adding the official website link for 1win page at www.1win.com/about. Per WP:ELOFFICIAL, an official link website is allowed 1 time per article, in the infobox section, and without repetition, despite the general spam block on the domain. Please comment? ~2026-28206-99 (talk) 13:09, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

The website is already in the infobox. We're here to provide information on the website, not necessarily convenience links. The fact we have the website listed in the infobox is sufficient, even if you can't click on it. Plus we don't need to link to the About page, just the main URL. Canterbury Tail talk 16:55, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I understand your answer. My only objection is that this goes against the "uniformity" of guidelines. For example, ZoomInfo is on the spam list, but the link to its page was added, and the Wikipedia:External links policy allows it. This policy is also in effect in this case. In this light, would you consider adding a {{URL}} markup to the only official website, www.1win.com, only in one location, as per the guideline? ~2026-28206-99 (talk) 07:01, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Help_desk#External_links_to_IMDb

Are imdb EL:s added more than reasonable? If you have an opinion, please join. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:44, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

wuaze.com

• wuaze.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I'm seeking a rough consensus here about whether wuaze.com is something we should ever be linking to.

It's a free webhosting service, with sites located at sitename.wuaze.com and while there are some legitimate fan sites (that we wouldn't be linking to anyway) there, mostly it appears to be scams, spam and phishing. For instance, I'm currently in a slow-motion edit war of sorts with a spammer intent on adding a wuaze.com faked ref to Betsson, an online betting provider. The link is a spam site.

A look at Spamcheck shows that some ~90% of the wuaze.com links have been immediately reverted, the survivors being band fan sites that I have since removed.

If I can get consensus here that this is A Bad Link, I'll ask the good people at WikiProject Spam about blacklisting it (I think at the moment they'd ask me to come here first anyway, because of the ~10% useless-but-not-bad links). • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 14:33, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that you should post this at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, but I think at the moment they'd ask me to get a consensus somewhere else first, because of the ~10% useless-but-not-bad links. • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 20:20, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

We've achieved non-objections so far. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

"Mediascope"

Trying to add a link in an article (e.g. to this), brings up a warning for "untrusted security certificates" and possible phishing. -The Gnome (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Following a DOI in that article takes me to http://www.mediascope.ru/en, and I don't get an error message. Can you tell me more about what happened? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but... I get the same error issue if I try to go to the address using https, but I don't if I use http. It looks like their https service is offering a certificate that expired in 2020, and that throws browser alerts at me. LizardJr8 (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2026 (UTC)