Template:Cleanup bare URLs

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This template is used on approximately 11,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

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If you plan to make breaking changes to this template, move it, or nominate it for deletion, please notify Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle as a courtesy, as the standard installation of Twinkle adds and removes this template. Thank you!

Shortcuts

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

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=May 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 — 18,688 pages
Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
- Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations from May 2025 — 0 pages
Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
- Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify from May 2025 — 0 pages
Category:Articles needing cleanup or a dated subcategory thereof, currently
- Category:Articles needing cleanup from May 2025 — 0 pages

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

Purge this page to update pages-in-category counts

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[Edit template data]
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

And more

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Dubious}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{No significant coverage}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS only}} {{Primary sources}} {{Primary sources section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference cleanup}} {{Self-sourcing examples}} {{Refexample section}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Third-party}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreferenced category}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Unreliable sources section}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unreferenced}} {{BLP unreferenced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Content}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Disputed chem}} {{Disputed list}} {{Disputed map}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Shallow references}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles