External links
External links can be added to entries for songs, albums, artists, tags, and events.
These links serve three main purposes:
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- Provide ways for the viewers to legally purchase or download the albums or songs.
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- Provide ways for the viewers to find out more about the artists or albums.
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- Provide points of reference.
Note that VocaDB is not intended to provide all the possible information about artists, nor can users buy albums on VocaDB. Artists’ own websites, online stores and sometimes other wikis are better for explaining this.
The third point means that links to reliable reference sites, such as VGMdb, Discogs, and the Vocaloid Wiki are encouraged. As long as the linked sites are reliable, having more links to such sites makes the information on VocaDB more reliable as well. Links to official sources, such as artists’ websites, are even better, but having multiple references is still good.
The link description and category will be guessed automatically based on the URL if the domain is known: WebLinkMatcher.ts
Link icons are maintained on the ExtIcons-repository and implemented on ExtLinks.css.
Link categories
Link categories (official, commercial, reference, other) are available for the main entry types (songs, albums and artists).
Official links
- Official
- Commercial
Official links are links to content that the artist can directly control: official websites, social media links, etc. Official links that include commercial features (such as album/song purchase) should be marked as Commercial.
Unofficial links
- Reference
- Other
Unofficial links are links to content that artist doesn’t directly control: Wikipedia pages, fansites, etc. If the link is not referencing the content of the entry, it should be marked as Other.
Link category examples
| Entry type | Official | Commercial | Reference | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song | Official karaoke links | (Prefer adding the link to the album entry) | Wiki article of the song | Wiki article of the song theme |
| Album | Official album websites | Official commercial websites | Wiki article of the album | Wiki article of the album theme |
| Artist | Official artist websites, social media links | Artist’s profile page on commercial websites | Wiki article of the artist | Wiki article of the artist theme |
Removing links
See the Content removal guidelines.
Mobile links
Some websites have a separate URL for pages meant to be viewed on mobile:
Always prefer adding the desktop version of the link.
Different URL Formats
Some websites support different URL formats that point to the same webpage. YouTube channels, for example, may have up to four different URL formats:
- Default URL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/YouTube
- Handle URL: https://www.youtube.com/@YouTube
- Custom URL: https://www.youtube.com/c/YouTube
- Legacy URL: https://www.youtube.com/user/YouTube
Adding links with different URL formats is encouraged because they can be useful for recognition and archival purposes. However, note that ”@” urls (for example https://www.youtube.com/@YouTube) are not currently supported by the system that adds relevant artists to songs on the song submission page, so if an artist has only the ”@” url, you will have to add the artist manually.
Email addresses
Some artists share their email addresses publicly for example on their NicoNico profile. These email addresses are not considered very useful information on VocaDB, so adding them is generally discouraged. Most of the time such public addresses are so full of spam that the artists have abandoned them anyway.
Forbidden links
Direct download links to files (for example .mp3 or .flac) or Google Drive links are not allowed, even if they’re legal. Instead, you should always link to the artist’s page if possible, be that Piapro or a blog. There are multiple reasons for this, but the most important is that the artist gets traffic for the downloads.
Links to illegal file sharing sites are not allowed.