Link manager and auto-linking

RankFlect SEO Pro This feature is part of RankFlect SEO Pro. See plans. Every plan has a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Internal links help readers and search engines find your content. A post that no other post links to (an orphan) is easy to miss. The link manager shows how your posts link to each other, which sites you link out to, and lets you link a keyword to a page everywhere it appears.

Open it at RankFlect SEO → Content → Links. It has three tabs: Link report, External domains and Auto-linking.

Link report

The link report lists every published post with three numbers:

Column	What it counts
Incoming internal	Links to this post from your other published posts.
Outgoing internal	Links from this post to other posts on your site.
External	Links from this post to other sites.

Posts with no incoming links show an Orphan badge instead of a number. The two cards on top show Posts with link counts and Orphans ("No other published post links to them.").

By default the list is sorted Fewest incoming links first, so orphans come first. You can also:

• Search by title with Search posts….
• Pick a content type, or keep All content types.
• Sort by Most incoming links first, Most outgoing links first, Fewest outgoing links first, Title A–Z or Newest first.

Click a title to edit the post, or View to open it.

Count links for older posts

Link counts update when a post is saved. Posts that have not been saved since RankFlect SEO was installed have no counts yet, and the report says "N published posts have no link counts yet." Click Count links now to count them all once. It runs in batches and shows "Counting links… X of Y". It does the same work as Rebuild link counts under RankFlect SEO → Tools, and as wp rankflect links rebuild (see WP-CLI commands).

Fix an orphan

Open a related post that already gets traffic and link to the orphan from a sentence where it fits. In the block editor, the Internal links section of the RankFlect SEO panel's Analysis tab suggests links you can insert. See Edit SEO in the block editor. You can also add an auto-linking rule, below.

External domains

"The sites your published content links to most, with how many of those links are nofollow, sponsored or UGC as visitors see them."

The tab scans your published content when you open it ("Scanning posts… X of Y") and lists each domain with:

Column	What it shows
Domain	The site you link to.
Links	How many links point to it.
Posts	How many posts contain those links.
nofollow, sponsored, ugc	How many of those links carry each rel value.

The counts are the links as visitors see them, so they include the rel values your external link rules add when that feature is on. Use it to spot a site you link to too often, or affiliate links that are missing sponsored. Click Scan again after you edit posts. Nothing from the scan is stored.

Auto-linking

Auto-linking links a keyword to a page wherever it appears in your posts. "Links are added when a page is shown, so your saved content never changes and removing a rule removes its links."

Auto-linking is off by default and has no rules until you add them.

Add a rule

1. Go to RankFlect SEO → Content → Links → Auto-linking.
2. Click Add rule.
3. In Keyword, type the words to link, for example mango pickle.
4. In Link to (URL or /path/), enter a full URL (https://…) or a path on your site, such as /mango-pickle/.
5. Tick Match case if the keyword should only match with the same capital letters.
6. Turn on Add links from these rules.
7. Click Save. You see "Auto-linking rules saved. Undo from the Change Log."

Most links added per post limits how many rule links one post can get. The default is 3, and the most is 20.

How rules are applied

• "Each rule links the first time its keyword appears in a post, outside headings and existing links."
• Keywords match whole words only, so pickle does not link inside pickles.
• Text in headings, existing links, code, buttons, form fields and image captions is never linked.
• "A post is never linked to itself or to a page it already links to."
• Rules are tried in the order they are listed, until the post reaches Most links added per post.
• Links are added only on the post's own page, not in feeds, archive lists or the editor.

Because links are added when the page is shown, your post content in the editor stays as you wrote it. Turn off Add links from these rules, or remove a rule, and its links are gone everywhere. If you use a page cache, clear it to see a change right away.

Each rule save is listed in the Change Log as "Auto-linking rules". Click Revert there to go back to the rules you had before.

Tip Use a few specific keywords that point to your best page on each topic. Too many automatic links to the same page make posts harder to read.

Who can use it

Users who can edit other people's posts (editors and administrators) can see the Link report and External domains. Only administrators see the Auto-linking tab and the Count links now button. You can change who sees RankFlect SEO screens in the Role manager.

On the free plan, the Links tab shows a PRO label and an upgrade card. Internal link suggestions in the editor are also part of Pro.

FAQ

Does auto-linking change my posts?

No. The links are added to the page when it is shown. The post saved in WordPress is not changed.

Will auto-linking help my rankings?

There is no promise of that. Internal links help readers and search engines find related content. Add rules where a link is useful to the reader.

Why does a post show an Orphan badge when I know it has links?

The links may come from drafts, from menus or widgets, or from posts that have not been counted yet. The report only counts links in the content of published posts. Click Count links now if the report says some posts have no counts.

Are auto-links included in the link counts?

No. The counts come from the saved post content, and auto-links are added only when the page is shown.