Access for editors

Decide whether editors can use Link Manager Pro, and know what administrators, editors, Authors and Contributors can each do.

Administrators can always use Link Manager Pro. To let editors manage links in WordPress too, an administrator sets Who can use Link Manager Pro to Editors and above under Link Manager › Settings › Advanced. Settings stay with administrators either way. And anyone who can edit posts, Authors and Contributors included, gets the editor tools without any access to the Link Manager menu.

Who can use Link Manager Pro?

Link Manager Pro has three levels of access. Administrators get everything. Editors get the Link Manager menu without Settings, but only when an administrator allows it. Everyone who can edit posts gets the editor tools in the posts they can edit.

Role on a standard WordPress site	Link Manager menu: links, reports, Link Intelligence	Settings and setup	Editor tools in posts
Administrator	Always	Yes	Yes
Editor	Only with Editors and above	No	Yes
Author	No, unless you give the role access (below)	No	Yes
Contributor	No, unless you give the role access	No	Yes, to search and insert. Not to create
Subscriber	No	No	No

The editor tools are the Short link button in the block editor (Insert short link in the classic editor), the AI Link Assistant and the Internal link optimization box. Editor tools explains how to use them.

Let editors manage links in WordPress

Who can use Link Manager Pro starts at Administrators only. Switch it to Editors and above and every user with the Editor role can work in Link Manager Pro. You need an administrator account to change it.

WARNING

With Editors and above, every editor can delete short links, redirects and affiliates, and nothing goes to a trash. Deleting a short link also deletes its clicks, routing rules and other addresses. Deleting a redirect deletes its hit history. Editors can also run Scan posts, which edits posts. Choose it only if you trust each editor with that.

1. Go to Link Manager › Settings › Advanced.
2. In Who can use Link Manager Pro, choose Editors and above.
3. Select Save changes.

From their next page load, editors see the Link Manager menu with Dashboard, Short Links, Campaigns, Affiliates and Link Intelligence. Settings isn't there. To check it worked, ask an editor to reload any WordPress admin screen and look for Link Manager in the menu.

To take access away again, choose Administrators only and select Save changes. Editors lose the menu on their next page load, and Link Manager Pro refuses their requests from then on. The editor tools stay, because they never depended on this setting.

What editors can do in Link Manager Pro

With Editors and above, editors work in every part of Link Manager Pro except Settings. They have the same buttons as an administrator on these screens, apart from the few listed under What stays with administrators:

• Short Links: create, edit and delete short links, open their reports, manage other addresses, categories and tags.
• Campaigns and Affiliates: create, edit and delete them, and see their reports.
• Link Intelligence: scan and fix in Link Health, scan in Link Audit and Link Equity, and create, pause or delete Redirects.
• Dashboard: every report, and Scan my site, which opens Scan posts. Posts their account can't edit are left as they were.
• The WordPress Dashboard: the plugin's Overview and Quick Add widgets. People without access to Link Manager Pro don't get them.

What stays with administrators

Some parts of Link Manager Pro need an administrator, whatever Who can use Link Manager Pro says. In WordPress terms, that's anyone with the manage_options capability, which the Administrator role has. These include:

• Settings and every tab in it, such as Migration (imports from other plugins and old shortcodes), Webhooks, AI Link Assistant with the AI key, and Backup & restore. Editors don't see Settings in the menu or in the plugin's top bar. A settings address takes them to the Dashboard, and Link Manager Pro refuses to send or save settings for them.
• Setup (Set up Link Manager Pro). It opens only for an administrator, both after activation and when a setup left part-way picks up again.
• System information in Help & Support.
• Adopt address in the Redirects review panel.
• Link Intelligence settings in Link Health's More actions menu (⋯).
• The import suggestion in the Dashboard's Needs attention card, and the WordPress notices about another plugin's links to import and about an unfinished restore.

Where an editor meets one of these, the screen points to an administrator instead of a settings link. For example, with click tracking off, the Dashboard says An administrator can turn it on in Settings. The Redirects review panel shows An administrator can adopt an address. And the Scan posts warning suggests asking an administrator for a backup first.

Editor access for Authors and Contributors

Anyone who can edit posts can use the editor tools in the posts they can edit. That's the edit_posts capability, which every role from Contributor up has on a standard WordPress site. Who can use Link Manager Pro doesn't change this, and writers don't need the Link Manager menu for it.

Without the menu, a writer can:

• Search your short links and affiliates and insert them, with Short link in the block editor or Insert short link in the classic editor. Your short links and affiliates also show up in WordPress's own link search.
• Create a short link with New short link and Create & insert, if they can publish posts (Authors and up): a Destination URL and an optional slug, nothing more. Everything else gets safe defaults (what a new short link gets). Contributors can't create.
• Use the AI Link Assistant. Links to shorten works from the start; Suggestions need an administrator to turn them on and connect an AI provider (AI Link Assistant).
• See the Internal link optimization box, which counts the post's internal links.

A writer without the menu can't change, delete or open the report of a short link after creating it. Someone with access does that under Link Manager › Short Links.

Authors' short links work straight away

A short link an Author creates from the editor works the moment they select Create & insert, before anyone reviews their post. It can send visitors to any web page, on any site (an address starting with http:// or https://). The same goes for Create & insert under Links to shorten in the AI Link Assistant. The link stays in Short Links even if the post is never published, and only someone with access to the menu can change or delete it.

Contributors can search and insert existing short links, but they can't create any. The editor doesn't offer them the create option. A request to create one answers "Your role can insert existing short links but can’t create new ones. Ask an editor or administrator."

Give access to another role or one user

Editors and above means any user with the manage_link_manager_pro capability, not only the Editor role. To let an Author, a custom role or one person in, give them that capability and set Who can use Link Manager Pro to Editors and above. With Administrators only, the capability does nothing.

• With a role editor plugin: find manage_link_manager_pro in the role's capabilities, tick it and save.
• With WP-CLI: wp cap add author manage_link_manager_pro gives it to a role, and wp user add-cap <user> manage_link_manager_pro to one user. To take it back, use wp cap remove or wp user remove-cap the same way.

Link Manager Pro manages the capability on two roles itself:

When	What happens to manage_link_manager_pro
The plugin is activated	Added to the Administrator and Editor roles, every time
The plugin is deactivated	Removed from the Administrator and Editor roles. Other roles and single users keep it
The plugin is deleted with Delete all data when the plugin is deleted on	Removed from every role. A capability given to one user stays. wp link-manager-pro uninstall --delete-data does the same removal, whatever the setting (WP-CLI commands)

Note

If you take the capability away from the Editor role, it comes back the next time the plugin is activated. Check the Editor role after you deactivate and activate Link Manager Pro.

Administrators never need the capability. Link Manager Pro lets in anyone with manage_options, even if you remove manage_link_manager_pro from their role.

Multisite networks

Link Manager Pro is activated site by site on a multisite network. Network activation stops with a page titled Network activation not supported, which asks you to activate it from each site's Plugins screen. Each site has its own Who can use Link Manager Pro setting and its own roles. With WP-CLI, add --url=<site address> to the wp cap or wp user command to pick the site. A super admin passes every capability check in WordPress, so they have full access, Settings included, on every site where the plugin is active.

Details

Every check below runs on the server. A request without the right capability gets the answer Sorry, you are not allowed to access this resource. (HTTP 403).

Part	Who passes
Link Manager menu and its screens, the WordPress Dashboard widgets	manage_options, or manage_link_manager_pro while Who can use Link Manager Pro is Editors and above
Settings, setup, System information, Adopt address	manage_options only
Short link search, the Internal link optimization box	edit_posts
AI Link Assistant	edit_posts, or access to the Link Manager menu
Create & insert	publish_posts, or access to the Link Manager menu
AI Link Assistant scans and suggestions, Internal link optimization counts, for one post	Also edit_post for that post. Otherwise the assistant answers You cannot use the assistant on this post. and the box answers You cannot analyze this post.
Inserting a link from Link Audit into a post	edit_post for that post. Otherwise: You can’t edit that post.
WP-CLI commands (wp link-manager-pro ...)	No WordPress role check. Anyone who can run WP-CLI on the server can run them (WP-CLI commands)

Access is worked out on each request, so a change to the setting or to a role applies from the next page load. If the saved setting is missing or holds an unknown value, Link Manager Pro treats it as Administrators only.

Get more out of it

• Keep Administrators only if only you manage links. Your writers still get the editor tools: they can search and insert short links in their posts, and Authors can create them, without seeing your reports.
• Let one trusted Author manage links without opening it to every editor. Give that user manage_link_manager_pro, remove it from the Editor role, then choose Editors and above. Recheck the Editor role after you reactivate the plugin.
• Look over new short links now and then if Authors write for you. Short Links lists the newest first, so links writers made recently sit at the top.
• Set up the AI provider before you tell writers about suggestions. Once Link suggestions is on and until a provider is connected, writers see Ask an administrator to set up an AI provider to get suggestions. (AI Link Assistant settings).
• Before an editor runs Scan posts on published posts, make a backup with Posts and pages ticked. Only an administrator can make one (Back up and restore).

If something goes wrong

• If an editor doesn't see the Link Manager menu, then check that Who can use Link Manager Pro is set to Editors and above, and that the Editor role still has manage_link_manager_pro.
• If an editor or Author can't see Settings, or a settings address opens the Dashboard, then that's by design: only administrators can open Settings. Ask an administrator to make the change.
• If an Author or Contributor can't find the Link Manager menu, then they don't have access to it. They can still use the editor tools in their posts, or an administrator can give them access (Give access to another role or one user).
• If a writer sees Ask an administrator to set up an AI provider to get suggestions., then an administrator needs to connect a provider under Link Manager › Settings › AI Link Assistant.
• If editors you'd kept out have access again after the plugin was reactivated, then activation added manage_link_manager_pro back to the Editor role. Remove it again, or choose Administrators only.

More fixes are on Troubleshooting.

Related

• Advanced settings
• Editor tools
• AI Link Assistant
• REST API overview
• Troubleshooting