Product Code Database
Within the Toolbox section on the left-hand side of every page is a link labeled "What links here". This is used to see a list of the pages that link to (or to, or ) the current page. These are sometimes referred to as backlinks.
It is also possible to make a wikilink to the "What links here" list for a particular page; to do this type [[Special:WhatLinksHere/Page name]], replacing Page name with the title of the target page. (The same text – without the brackets – can also be entered in the search box, to access "What links here" for any page title.)
To use the tool, click and type in the page title.
This information comes from the and the . Pages redirected to the given page are marked "redirect". Pages transcluding the given page are marked "transclusion"; for these pages it is not shown whether they also link to the given page. For image and other file pages, the pages using the image or file appear on the list and are marked "image link".
The list of links to an article is useful in a number of ways:
The function works even for a page title that does not exist (recording to that title). The "What links here" link appears on the edit page on which one arrives when following a broken link. Thus, for example, if film articles are linked to the actors, one can find the films an actor has played in even if there is no article about the actor.
To invoke a "What links here" list directly (in the search box, browser address bar, or wikilinks) use the syntax (replacing "John Smith" with the desired target article title).
In the case of links to sections or other anchors, the precise target is not shown. "What links here" cannot list the backlinks of a specific section/anchor only. (It may be possible to work round this by making a new title that redirects to a particular section, and encouraging people to make links to the redirect rather than the section. Another possibility is to use Linksearch, but here users would have to add hidden external links.)
Also note that if a page's links change due to a change in a template, the backlinks for that page are , but via the job queue.
It also includes links which exist on certain pages due to the transclusion of other pages (templates). For example, if page A contains a transclusion of template B, and B contains a link to C (not contained within <noinclude> tags), then the link to C will appear on page A, and A will be listed among the backlinks of C.
It is possible that pages may contain links to C as a result of the transclusion of a template even though the template does not itself contain such links (the links may be produced in the template wikitext by the application of various parser functions, rather than explicitly). In this case the template will not show up in the backlinks of C, although pages on which it is transcluded will (if they have the links to C). It may be convenient to make the template appear on the list by placing a link to C on the template, within <noinclude> tags.
There is a tool which returns the total number of backlinks to a page: use the following URL:
For extended syntax see the tool documentation page.
This feature does not detect interwiki links (in double square brackets), only those using external link syntax.
It is possible to obtain the list of backlinks (with additional information) programmatically using the MediaWiki API. For information on how to do this, see the .
With the extension Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) links are categorized by specifying relations. For a given relation the backlinks of a page can be produced in-page. A series of queries, one for each relation (which seems cumbersome but can be put in a template like [4]), provides an in-page list of backlinks sorted by relation. Moreover, forward links and attributes of the resulting pages can also be provided, and also backlinks of backlinks.
A simpler extension that can embed backlinks (without the semantic functionality) is .
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: Transclusion#Special pages.
