Jump to content

ProcessWire ProFields: AutoLinks


ryan
 Share

Recommended Posts

Introducing the AutoLinks Text Formatter, part of the ProcessWire ProFields package of modules. 

What it Does

 
This Textformatter module automatically links your specified phrases/words to your specified URLs. This is an excellent SEO and accessibility tool for creating automatic contextual links with little effort. If there are pages that you commonly link to in your site from your textarea/rich text fields, then this Textformatter can save you a lot of effort, automatically linking to those URLs. Furthermore, contextual links of this sort are also considered especially valuable from an SEO context.
 
Because this module is a Textformatter module, the work it does happens at runtime. That means that this module can easily be applied to existing sites, no matter how large.
 
Usage Example
 
We'll use processwire.com as an example. Throughout processwire.com, we routinely use the terms "API", "selector", "template", "template file", "$page", "$pages" and more. In the past, I've spent a lot of time in TinyMCE manually linking these terms to the appropriate pages, as it is a helpful cross-reference for users. For example, when the term "API" appears, I want to automatically link to the API Cheatsheet page at http://cheatsheet.processwire.com.
 
With the AutoLinks Textformatter module, I can now automatically link to all my important terms from all existing and future body copy. If one of those links happens to change in the future, no problem, as I only have to update it in one place (if at all). The benefits here are a real win win for the users of processwire.com, myself (in time savings) and our performance with search engines that analyze these contextual links. We hope that you find AutoLinks to be a huge benefit to your site(s) and time saver for you and/or your site editors.
 
AutoLinks is available for purchase as part of the ProFields package in the ProcessWire Store
 
  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

SEO-wow! :D

In a page of copy, will this cleverly link the first instance only or the first N instances or does it link, for example, every time API is in the copy (if I were manually HRO'ing (human reading optimization) and SEO'ing a page of copy I would not link every instance)?

Excited by these products Ryan, thanks so much!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good question Alan. Here's a screenshot of the module config screen that I think answers your question. See the two settings at the bottom where you can define the max times to link and the distance required between links. AutoLinks is of course also smart enough not to attempt linking things that have already been linked. 

post-2-0-36679000-1400508970_thumb.png

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

AutoLinks has been updated with the following additions: 

  • Multi-language support: You can now specify different sets of terms per language. 

  • Max linked terms option: You can now specify the maximum terms that will be linked in a block of copy.

  • Markup for links: It will now let you control the markup for auto-generated links and you can specify different markup for internal and external links. 

  • Allowed tags whitelist: You can now specify a whitelist of tags where auto-generated links are allowed. For example, if you didn't want it generating links in headlines, you might tell it to only generate links in paragraphs <p> and list items <li>.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 10 months later...

@ryan I'm looking at using autolinks on a project for a book publisher. They will have hundreds of titles and wondered whether it's possible for the following:

  • Import lists of terms to be autolinked or use a textfile? Specifically on this site it would be book titles and it's not practically to manually add these to the module
  • Make the terms case senstive?

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...