Manual:Externallinks table

The externallinks table is where MediaWiki stores and tracks external links. This table was introduced after 1.5.

+--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+
 * Field   | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
 * el_from | int(8) unsigned | NO   | MUL | 0       |       |
 * el_to   | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
 * el_index | blob           | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |

The el_from is the page identifier of the referring wiki page. el_to is the actual URL itself and is passed to the browser, whilst el_index is the same URL search-optimised: username and password information is stripped, and the other components are reversed for faster searching, so  http://user:password@sub.example.com/page.html  becomes  http://com.example.sub./page.html , which allows searches of the form 'Show all links pointing to *.example.com'.

Previous versions
+--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+
 * Field   | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
 * el_from | int(10) unsigned| NO   | MUL | 0       |       |
 * el_to   | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
 * el_index | blob           | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |

+--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+ +--+-+--+-+-+---+
 * Field   | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
 * el_from | int(8) unsigned |      | MUL | 0       |       |
 * el_to   | blob            |      | MUL |         |       |
 * el_index | blob           |      | MUL |         |       |