<a href="http://link.com"> link </a>
will work. Your links didn't work because they were of the form
<a href= "http://link.com"> link </a>
<a href="http://link.com"> link </a>
The extra spaces broke the links.
]]>Note that the usual methods sometimes do not work with Wikipedia links that have peculiar punctuation. It might work on everybody else's up-to-date browsers.
Actually, if you enter your strange punctuation links using CTRL+L or by clicking the button in the button bar (as opposed to manually entering the markdown), the editor automagically escapes all the weird characters.
]]>If you're trying to make a link in a comment, just type the URL (without any extra html) and it will be automatically linkified.
]]>