Table of Contents

  1. Statistics Menu
  2. Autolinks Menu
  3. Categories Menu
  4. Term Groups Menu
  5. Options Menu
  6. Credits
  7. FAQ

1) Statistics Menu

The Statistics menu allows you to generate statistics about the autolinks applied in the posts, pages and custom post types of your blog.

You can generate these data for the first time or update your data by following this procedure:

  1. Visit the Autolinks -> Statistics menu
  2. Click the Generate button
  3. Wait until the analysis of the posts is completed

Each row of the generated table will present the following information:

  • Post ID – The post ID
  • Post – The post title
  • Content Length – The length of the raw (with filters not applied) post content
  • Autolinks – The number autolinks applied on the post

The Autolinks menu allows you to create an autolink at a time and specify all the information associated with the autolink.

To create an autolink enter the following information:

  • Name – The name of the autolink.
  • Category – The category of the autolink.
  • Keyword – The keyword that will be converted to a link.
  • URL – The destination address of the link automatically generated on the keyword.
  • Title – The title attribute of the link automatically generated on the keyword.
  • Open New Tab – If you select “Yes” the link generated on the defined keyword opens the linked document in a new tab.
  • Use Nofollow – If you select “Yes” the link generated on the defined keyword will include the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
  • Post Types – With this option you are able to determine in which post types the defined keywords will be automatically converted to a link. Leave this field empty to convert the keyword in any post type.
  • Categories – With this option you are able to determine in which categories the defined keywords will be automatically converted to a link. Leave this field empty to convert the keyword in any category.
  • Tags – With this option you are able to determine in which tags the defined keywords will be automatically converted to a link. Leave this field empty to convert the keyword in any tag.
  • Term Group – The terms that will be compared with the ones available on the posts where the autolinks are applied. Please note that when a term group is selected the “Categories” and “Tags” options will be ignored.
  • Case Sensitive Search – If you select “No” the defined keyword will match both lowercase and uppercase variations.
  • Left Boundary – Use this option to match keywords preceded by a generic boundary or by a specific character.
  • Right Boundary – Use this option to match keywords followed by a generic boundary or by a specific character.
  • Keyword Before – Use this option to match occurences preceded by a specific string.
  • Keyword After – Use this option to match occurences followed by a specific string.
  • Limit – With this option you can determine the maximum number of matches of the defined keyword automatically converted to a link.
  • Priority – The priority value determines the order used to apply the autolinks on the post.

Please note that the default values of the various field available in the form are based on the options defined in the Defaults tab of the Autolinks -> Options menu.

3) Categories Menu

The Categories menu allows you to create categories for the autolinks.

To create a category proceed as follows:

  1. Visit the Autolinks -> Categories menu
  2. In the Name field enter the name of the category
  3. In the Description field enter the description of the category
  4. Click the Add Category button

4) Term Groups Menu

With this menu you will be able to create term groups. A term group is a an entity that includes from 1 to 50 terms. Each term present in a term group will be compared with the ones available on the posts where the autolinks are applied, if the considered post has at least one term present in the term group the autolink will be applied.

To create a term group proceed as follows:

  1. Visit the Autolinks -> Term Groups menu
  2. In the Name field enter the name of the term group
  3. With Post Type 1 select the post type for which you want to retrieve the taxonomies
  4. With Taxonomy 1 select the taxonomy for which you want to retrieve the terms
  5. With Term 1 select the term that will be compared with the ones available on the posts where the autolinks are applied
  6. Repeat steps three to five if you want to include other terms in the term group

Please note that you can increase or decrease the number of terms available in the Term Groups menu with the Supported Terms option available in the Advanced tab of the Autolinks -> Options menu.

5) Options Menu

The Options menu includes a total of 33 options, you can hover the mouse over the question mark available on the right of each option to receive additional information on how the specific option should be used.

6) Credits

This plugin makes use of the following resources:

For each library you can find the actual copy of the license inside the folder used to store the library files.

7) FAQ

How to solve performance and post analysis issues?

The analysis on your posts performed in the Autolinks -> Statistics menu can be slow if one or more of the following conditions occur:

  • The blog has a high number of posts and you are not limiting the analysis of the posts with the Limit Posts Analysis option
  • You have defined a high number of autolinks
  • Your server performance are below the norm

To avoid errors such as “Maximum execution time of x seconds exceeded” or “Allowed memory size of x bytes exhausted” it’s important to consider that:

  • Some server have a limited maximum number of seconds to execute the PHP scripts and long running scripts can’t be completed. If this is your case simply set “Yes” on the Set Max Execution Time option and enter an appropriate value in the Max Execution Time Value option.
  • Sometimes the PHP memory limit is very limited and long running scripts can’t be completed. If you want to increase the PHP memory limit set “Yes” on the Set Memory Limit option and enter an appropriate value in the Memory Limit Value option.

Please note that the custom max_execution_time and memory_limit values defined with the plugin will be applied only on a limited selection of long running scripts used by the plugin and won’t affect any script outside the plugin.

It’s also important to note that in some cases the custom max_execution_time and memory_limit values defined through the plugin options (and actually applied with the ini_set() PHP function) might be ignored. In such cases you have to configure your server (or ask to your hosting provider to configure your server) with different values in the max_execution_time and memory_limit directives.

If the max_execution_time and memory_limit values defined through the plugin option are ignored and your current hosting plan doesn’t allow you to increase these values even manually after a support ticket, the only solution is to set the Limit Posts Analysis option with a value smaller than 1000 and not exceeding more than 100 keywords in the Autolinks menu.

How the Test Mode works?

The Test Mode is an option available in the Advanced tab of the Autolinks -> Options menu.

When the test mode is enabled your autolinks will be actually applied on the front-end of your website only to the WordPress users that have the capability defined with the Autolinks Menu option available in the Capabilities menu.

This means that, when the test mode is enabled, only the website administrator will actually see the autolinks applied on the posts. This allows you to easily test the application of the autolinks in a production environment.

It’s therefore obvious, but important to note, that if the test mode is enabled, your visitors and your logged-in users that don’t have the required capability won’t see any autolink applied to your posts.

Please also note that while in test mode, the data and statistics generated in the back-end of the plugin will consider the autolinks applied. This behavior allows you to have more information about your applied autolinks before you actually activate them (by disabling the test mode) to your visitors.

What are the Protected Tags?

The Protected Tags option, available in the Advanced tab of the Autolinks -> Options menu, allows you to not apply the autolinks on specific tags present in your posts.

Let’s say that you have created an autolink that converts the word “dreamer” to a link, but you don’t want to convert the word “dreamer” inside a blockquote element with the quote “You may say that I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one”. You can solve the problem simply by adding the tag “blockquote” in the list of protected tags.

Please note that by protecting non-void tags you prevent any nested element from having applied an autolink.

What are the Protected Gutenberg Block?

The Protected Gutenberg Blocks option, available in the Advanced tab of the Autolinks -> Options menu, allows you to not apply the autolinks on specific Gutenberg Blocks present in your posts.

For more information on the Gutenberg Project please check out this article.

What is the “Generic” keyword boundary?

The “Generic” boundary available in the select box of the Left Boundary and Right Boundary options and in the Autolinks menu is a generic boundary able to detect transitions between Unicode characters and Unicode non-characters.

For example if you assign the “Generic” boundary as the Left Boundary of the keyword “cat”, the keyword will be matched by the regular expressions in the following cases:

  • ” cat”
  • “,cat”
  • “-cat”
  • “!cat”

but not on the following cases:

  • “zcat”
  • “àcat”
  • “ìcat”

What is the “None” keyword boundary?

The “None” boundary available in the select box of the Left Boundary and Right Boundary options and in the Autolinks menu allows you to match keywords without considering the transition between the keyword and the preceding or following characters.

For example if you assign the “None” boundary as the Left Boundary of the keyword “cat”, the keyword will be matched by the regular expressions in any of the following cases:

  • ” cat”
  • “,cat”
  • “-cat”
  • “!cat”
  • “zcat”
  • “àcat”
  • “ìcat”

PHP 5.3 and later versions are supported.

WordPress 4.5 and later versions are supported.