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Glossary
TL;DR: A reference of link management, affiliate marketing, and SEO terms you encounter when working with WordPress links. Each definition explains the term and how it applies to Link Manager Pro.
301 Redirect
You send a 301 when you permanently move a URL. Search engines transfer link equity from the old URL to the new destination. You rely on 301 redirects for affiliate destinations and permanent URL changes, including those you manage in Link Manager Pro.
302 Redirect
You send a 302 when you temporarily route traffic elsewhere. Search engines keep the original URL in their index. You choose 302 redirects for short-term promotions or A/B tests.
307 Redirect
You send a 307 when you need a temporary redirect that preserves the HTTP method. If the original request was POST, the follow-up request stays POST. You use 307 redirects for form submissions and API endpoints.
404 Error
A 404 response means the server has no resource at that URL. Link Manager Pro health monitoring logs 404 errors from real visitor traffic on your site so you spot broken destinations early.
Affiliate Link
An affiliate URL carries tracking parameters that identify you as the referrer. When someone clicks your link and completes a qualifying action (often a purchase), you earn a commission.
Auto-Linking
Auto-linking replaces specific keywords in your content with links automatically. In Link Manager Pro, you define keyword-to-link mappings with priority, case sensitivity, and per-page limits.
Bot Detection
You identify non-human traffic—search crawlers, scrapers, spam bots—and exclude it from click analytics. Link Manager Pro includes 40+ built-in bot patterns and supports custom patterns you add yourself.
Click Tracking
Click tracking records data for each link click: timestamp, visitor location, device, browser, referrer, and whether the hit counts as unique. Link Manager Pro tracks clicks on masked links automatically.
Coverage Score
Your coverage score runs from 0 to 100 (graded A through F) and reflects internal linking health across the site. Posts with zero inbound links reduce the score more than posts that already have a few internal links.
FTC Disclosure
You display an FTC disclosure when you earn money from links in content subject to US Federal Trade Commission rules. Link Manager Pro auto-inserts disclosure text on posts that contain affiliate links.
GeoLite2
GeoLite2 is MaxMind’s free IP geolocation database. Link Manager Pro uses it to resolve visitor country from IP addresses for click tracking reports.
Internal Link
An internal link points to another page on the same website. You help visitors navigate and you help search engines understand site structure when you build strong internal links.
IP Anonymization
You remove or truncate the last segment of a visitor’s IP address before you store it. You protect privacy and align with GDPR-style expectations while you still retain coarse location signals.
Link Audit
A link audit analyzes how your site’s pages connect to one another. Link Manager Pro classifies posts as orphaned (zero inbound links), weak (below your threshold), or healthy, and it generates your coverage score.
Link Cloaking
You use “link cloaking” as a synonym for link masking. See Link Masking.
Link Equity (Link Juice)
Link equity is the SEO value one page passes to another through hyperlinks. You pass equity with 301 redirects and normal followed links; you block it with rel="nofollow".
Link Masking
Link masking replaces a long destination URL with a short, branded path on your own domain, so visitors see something like yoursite.com/go/product instead of the raw affiliate URL. Link Manager Pro handles the redirect server-side.
Nofollow
You add rel="nofollow" to tell search engines not to pass link equity to the destination. You use it on affiliate links, paid links, and content you do not fully trust.
Noopener
You add rel="noopener" so the opened page cannot access your page through window.opener. You treat this as a security best practice for links that open in new tabs.
Noreferrer
You add rel="noreferrer" so the browser does not send a Referer header to the destination. The linked site’s analytics then cannot see which page on your site originated the click.
Orphaned Post
An orphaned post has zero inbound internal links from other pages on your site. Visitors and search engines struggle to discover it. Link Manager Pro’s link audit surfaces orphaned posts.
Parameter Forwarding
Parameter forwarding passes query parameters from the masked URL through to the destination. If someone clicks yoursite.com/go/product?color=red, you append ?color=red to the final destination URL.
QR Code
A QR code encodes a URL so cameras and scanners open it instantly. Link Manager Pro generates QR codes from masked links for print, packaging, and offline campaigns.
Redirect
A redirect sends a visitor from one URL to another without manual steps. Link Manager Pro supports 301, 302, and 307 redirects for masked links.
Slug
The slug is the customizable segment in the path after your configured prefix. In yoursite.com/go/product, you set go as the prefix and product as the slug in Link Manager Pro.
Sponsored
You add rel="sponsored" to flag paid or affiliate links for search engines. Google recommends rel="sponsored" instead of or alongside rel="nofollow" for affiliate links.
UGC
You add rel="ugc" to mark links inside user-generated content, such as comments or forum posts. You signal that you did not editorially place the link.
Unique Visitor
You count a unique visitor when a first-party cookie distinguishes someone from repeat clicks in your reporting window. Link Manager Pro sets a link_manager_pro_id cookie (UUID v4, one-year TTL) for that purpose.
UTM Parameters
You append five standard parameters—utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content—so Google Analytics attributes traffic to specific marketing campaigns.
Related
- Link Masking — How URL masking works in Link Manager Pro
- Click Tracking — What data is collected per click
- Link Audit — How the coverage score is calculated
- FAQ — Answers to common questions