Guide to interwiki linking

An interwiki link is a unique link that takes users from one wiki to another. For instance, the Miraheze Commons' commons:main page is linked to by. An interwiki map, which is a list of target wikis or websites together with their prefixes, is provided for each wiki. These target wikis or websites don't even have to be wikis or use MediaWiki.

Preface
Interwiki links are internal-style links to other websites (which do not have to be wikis, despite the name). For example, you can link to the article https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby by typing. It will result in a link simple:Baby. This works because Miraheze Meta-Wiki configures simple: as an "interwiki prefix" that turns into https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/ when used inside. Interwiki links, in contrast to internal links, do not use page existence detection, so they will still display as blue links even if the page in question does not exist on the destination wiki.

You can build piped links, which are similar to internal page links but have a different link label, for example,  is the link Cute baby and   is the link Baby.

Basically, interwiki links are abbreviations for commonly-used longer external links. A very similar link could be created as Cute baby.

Interlanguage links
If your wiki includes more language versions, you might find interlanguage links in the sidebar under the "in other languages" section just below the toolbox.

A category link functions similarly to an interlanguage link in terms of appearance in wiki markup, but it is displayed differently. Interlanguage links display in a special list in the page's sidebar (or elsewhere, depending on the wiki's settings and the skin being used), whereas category links often appear in a special list at the bottom of the page.

A page that can be used as a template (even if it is not in the template namespace) should not contain an interlanguage link since it shows in the page's edge and gives the impression that the link is to a translation of the referring page into the other language. Pages in the MediaWiki namespace are not appropriate for interlanguage links for the same reason.

The positions inside the wikitext are irrelevant, but the mutual order of interlanguage links is retained. They are typically placed toward the end. If they are in the section being edited when using section editing, they show up in the preview.

Even when using the project prefix, a link to the project itself (and hence a link to the page itself) shows in-page.

Why interlanguage links?
Interlanguage links connect pages on related subjects in several languages. The language prefix is the prefix supplied at your wiki for the other language version (typically the ISO 639-1 language code). To establish an interlanguage link, type  anywhere on the page (ideally towards the bottom, like category links). The interlanguage link is one-way; the page in the other language does not point back to it. An comparable backlink must be added there as well for that reason.

Miraheze pseudo-interwiki links
In addition to the default set of interwiki prefixes available to all Miraheze wikis, there is a native interwiki syntax that allows users to link from any miraheze wiki to any other miraheze wiki without setting up custom prefixes.

This capability is known as Pseudo-Interwiki Linking

The syntax for such links is  mh: : , and determining how to construct that link can be as simple as examining the URL for your destination page if a custom domain is not in use.

Examples
In the last example, the Boston Baker's Guild wiki is using a custom domain, preventing easy identification of the subdomain we'll need.

For this hypothetical, one could navigate to the core settings page of that wiki, found at https://bostonbakersguild.info/wiki/Special:ManageWiki/core.

Upon reaching the page, we would see that the database name is logged as bbgwiki, meaning that the subdomain for linking to the wiki is bbg. With this knowledge, the rest of the link can be formed as normal, allowing interwiki linking.

''NOTE: Examples given above are non-existent wikis. The Special:ManageWiki/core page is readable on all wikis for diagnostic purposes, though non-administrators will be unable to perform any changes on this page.''