The new version of Cross-Linker plugin for WordPress has been released. If you don't know what is the purpose of this plugin or if you aren't sure about functionality or how does it work, this page is for you!
What is the purpose of Cross-Linker?
The main purpose is making linking easier and automatic. It's quite difficult and time consuming to insert say 20-30 links to each post especially when a word
Bing should point at
Bing, right? The Cross-Linker makes linking easy by hyperlinking each word as many times as defined; Say that you configured the Cross-Linker to point at
Bing via words
bing, bing search engine, bing search maximally 3 times per page. With Cross-Linker it's all possible and these terms will be hyperlinked maximally 3 times (each term 3 times) per post. Actually you can configure more than that; Attributes, linking to your own posts, importing blogroll links, adding HTML tags to ignore, adding blocks of text that must not be hyperlinked by Cross-Linker, managing characters which are allowed as "part of a word", managing currently active or inactive hyperlinked words and terms, or exporting and importing data, and also including creating and restoring backups.
How to start with Cross-Linker?
- Firstly download the plugin from WordPress plugin page and activate it.
- After activating the plugin open the plugin page within your WordPress and select the core. Recommended is 1.4.2 and above and don't worry about that notice that it's a testing version. You can actually switch to the 1.4.1 core anytime.
- Now click the Open/Close The Console For Hyperlinking link and type any word that you want to be automatically hyperlinked. Say it's intenrnet. You want it to point at http://news.yahoo.com/internet/ so simply add this text (http://news.yahoo.com/internet/) to the second line of shown form. Next define the attribute (not required!), target='_blank' for instance. And click the "Cross-link now!" button. Simple, isn't it? This way you can define as many words as necessary.
- Click the Open/Close The Console For Managing Settings menu and choose the options. These options are nicely described, so there's no need to explain the meaning here. Select settings that suit your needs and are recommended too.
- Open the Open/Close The Console For Currently Hyperlinked Words and URLs menu and you'll see all hyperlinked terms.
- Other menus are very easy to understand :) .
Donations?
OK, if there's anyone who's willing to buy me more Guarana, then I accept donations.
Further add-ons
I plan to add the following features to the next version of Cross-Linker:
- class CSS attribute so that crosslinked words can be different than other links.
- data stored in text file and database too - but the data will be loaded from text file only, so MySQL tables with loads of Cross-Linker data will not waste your server's CPU and the time required to execute the script will be shorter. Data will be exported to a text file from MySQL tables automatically after performing any action with Cross-Linker in the Word-Press administrator area.
Originally published on July 27, 2008; modified on 3 July 2011
