Template:Cleanup bare URLs

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For the template that tags specific citations, see Template:Bare URL inline.

This template will add tagged articles to a cleanup category according to the month and year given.

What is a bare URL?

A bare URL is a link to a website with no identifying information except the link itself. It is not just a citation style that leaves the URL visible to the reader. Fully visible URLs are required by some citation styles, such as the MLA style. However, these visible URLs should be accompanied by useful descriptions of the page being linked, such as information about the author, title, and/or publication.

Bare URLs—add this tag

• http://www.example.org/page.html
• [1]

Good citations—do not add this tag

• Fuster V, Walsh RA, Harrington RA, eds. Hurst's The Heart. 13th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2011. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=7812984.
• Fuster V, Walsh RA, Harrington RA, eds. Hurst's The Heart. 13th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2011.[2]

How to use

Before adding this template, consider trying toollabs:refill, paste into the text box the name of the page with bare references, then click the "Fix page" button. Wait patiently for the program to finish filling in all citation templates for each bare reference. When the result page is loaded, please double-check the changes made in the diff preview on the result page and fix the errors before clicking the "Show preview" button at the bottom. References that could not be filled in with the tool will be listed on the page. On the actual editing interface on-wiki, you may wish to check the changes once again and use Ohconfucius's scripts to automatically correct some mistakes. When everything looks fine, click the "Publish changes" button to save your changes.

If there are references you failed to fix or you need assistance in fixing them, paste this at the top of an article with bare-URL references:

{{Cleanup bare URLs|date=November 2025}}

Save the page. Someone else may click on the reFill tool link on the template to fix the bare references semi-automatically, or manually correct them.

A manual of the tool is available on Wikipedia:ReFill.

Tracking categories

This template places the article into the following categories:

• Category:All articles with bare URLs for citations — 42 pages
• Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
  • Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations from November 2025 — 0 pages
• Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
  • Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify from November 2025 — 0 pages
• Category:Articles needing cleanup or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
  • Category:Articles needing cleanup from November 2025 — 0 pages

If no date was added, a bot will add it later.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Cleanup bare URLs in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Cleanup bare URLs

Use this cleanup template to indicate that an article uses references containing bare URLs, which may be threatened by link rot.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Month and year	date	The month and year that the template was placed (in full). "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}" inserts the current month and year automatically. Example January 2013 Auto value {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}	Line	suggested
Affected area	1	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section Auto value section	Line	optional

On-demand search and tag

Tagbot adds the template on-demand. It searches for pages with bare links and tags them. See the control page Template:Cleanup bare URLs/bot for instructions how to trigger the bot to run.

In addition to |date= the bot adds two arguments:

• |bot=wp:tagbot
• |requester=<username> ie. who requested the bot to run

Redirects

• {{Bare}}
• {{Bare links}}
• {{Barelinks}}
• {{Bare references}}
• {{Bare refs}}
• {{Bare URLs}}
• {{Bare urls}}
• {{Bareurls}}
• {{BareURLs}}
• {{Bare-URLs}}
• {{Cleanup link rot}}
• {{Cleanup link-rot}}
• {{Cleanup-link-rot}}
• {{Cleanup-linkrot}}
• {{Link rot}}
• {{Linkrot}}

And more

See also

• List of Wikipedia articles with bare URLs
• {{Bare URL inline}}
• {{Citations broken}}
• {{Dead link}}
• {{External links}}
• Wikipedia:Link rot
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Cleanup bare URLs/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.