Cochrane Style Manual
Website addresses and links

In this section: Displaying website links | Adding website links in RevMan | Formatting addresses (URLs) | Formatting displayed text

Links to websites may be displayed within text.

For example:

We thank Cochrane Hypertension (hypertension.cochrane.org) for their support.

Additional data are available from www.healthdata.gov.

Note that if a website is in fact a reference, it should be entered as a reference, not a link.

Links to websites should be entered in RevMan using the Insert Link function. Detailed instructions for doing this are provided in the RevMan Knowledge Base.

Formatting addresses (URLs)

Copy and paste the URL from the website, but remove any unnecessary characters from the end of the URL.

For example:

https://www.researchinformation.info/news/digital-science-opens-russia-subsidiary?utm_source=adestra&utm_medium=RINewsline&utm_campaign=RI%20NL%20MAY17

Should be shortened to:

https://www.researchinformation.info/news/digital-science-opens-russia-subsidiary

Note: In this example the characters following the '?' are related to how you arrived at the link (in this case via a link in an email).

Always test any shortened URLs you enter.

Formatting displayed text

This text should display a shortened version of the URL, not the name of the website, unless the URL has to be very long, in which case do not use the whole URL as the display text, but instead consider using the title of the resource or other explanatory text.

Omit the 'http://' or 'https://' prefix from this field. Do not omit the 'www.' if it is present (although the address will most likely work without it), and do not add 'www.' if it is not included.

Note: include prefix 'https://' for URLs in references.

CorrectIncorrect
ari.cochrane.org

Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections

https://ari.cochrane.org

www.ari.cochrane.org

www.cochrane.org

Cochrane website

http://cochrane.org

cochrane.org

www.nih.gov/health-information

https://www.nih.gov/health-information

nih.gov/health-information

www.nih.gov

Section info
Contact
Denise Mitchell (production@cochrane.org)
Describe change
Updated RevMan Web to RevMan.
Added note about URLs in references.
Updated web address example for Cochrane Review Group from Heart to Acute Respiratory Infections.
Change date
10 April 2024