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All settings
Find the settings tab you need and jump straight to the setting for a task, such as the short link prefix or cookie consent.
Link Manager Pro settings live on 14 tabs under one Settings screen. This page says what each tab is for. It also takes you straight to the setting you need, such as the short link prefix, IP privacy or cookie consent.
Where to find Link Manager Pro settings
Link Manager › SettingsSettings is the last item in the Link Manager menu in WordPress, and in the plugin's own top bar. It opens on the General tab. The other tabs are listed down the left side. On a narrow screen they sit in one row you scroll sideways.
Only administrators can open Settings, even when editors can use the rest of the plugin (Who can open Settings).
The settings tabs
Each of the 14 tabs has its own page in these docs. Ten tabs hold settings you change and then save. Migration, License, Webhooks and Backup & restore are tools with their own buttons.
| Tab | What it's for | Page |
|---|---|---|
| General | The short link, internal and affiliate link prefixes, slug length, and turning links in your posts into short links | General settings |
| Redirection | The redirect type new links start with, site-wide UTM parameters, and nofollow, noopener, noreferrer and sponsored | Redirection settings |
| Tracking | Whether clicks are recorded, which are left out, how long they're kept, IP privacy and the country database | Tracking settings |
| Auto-linking | Whether keywords in posts become links, how many, and where | Auto-linking settings |
| Link Intelligence | Broken link scans, visitor 404s, Link Audit minimums, the internal link box in the editor, and Link Equity | Link Intelligence settings |
| Affiliate disclosure | The notice added to posts with affiliate links, and the Cookie notice | Affiliate disclosure settings |
| Notifications | The link health report by email | Notifications settings |
| Advanced | Who can use the plugin, how often reports refresh, proxy headers, and deleting data on uninstall | Advanced settings |
| Integrations | Cookie consent plugins, page cache clearing, and redirects from SEO plugins | Integrations settings |
| Migration | Importing from Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates or BetterLinks, and replacing their old shortcodes | Migrate to Link Manager Pro |
| License | Your license key | Activate your license |
| Webhooks | Sending events such as Short link clicked or Broken link found to another service | Webhooks and AutomatorWP |
| AI Link Assistant | The AI provider and key, link suggestions, and the AI request limit | AI Link Assistant settings |
| Backup & restore | Backing up your data to a file and restoring it | Back up and restore |
Find a setting by task
Look up what you want to do, then follow the link to that exact setting on its tab page. The tab page gives the default, the choices and what a change does.
Short links and redirects
| To | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
Change the link prefix (the link in yoursite.com/link/deal) | Short link prefix | General, then the step-by-step move |
Give short links to your affiliates a path of their own, like yoursite.com/recommends/amazon-deal | Affiliate link prefix | General |
| Make random slugs longer or shorter | Slug length | General |
| Stop links in your posts from becoming short links when you save | Mask links when saving posts | General |
| Open setup again | Run setup again | General |
| Pick 301, 302 or 307 for new links | Default redirect type | Redirection |
| Add UTM parameters to every short link click | Site-wide UTM parameters | Redirection |
Choose the rel values on masked links, auto-links and replaced shortcodes (nofollow is on for All links by default; links to your own site never get nofollow or sponsored) | Nofollow, Noopener, Noreferrer, Sponsored | Redirection, and where they apply: for masked links and an affiliate's own keywords, the affiliate's ticked Link attributes replace them on its domain |
| Bring over Rank Math or SEOPress redirects | Import redirects | Integrations, then Import SEO plugin redirects |
Clicks and privacy
| To | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Stop counting your own clicks | Blocked IP addresses (add your own IP address) | Tracking |
| Stop recording clicks altogether | Click tracking | Tracking |
| Delete old clicks automatically | Keep click data for | Tracking |
| Store shortened visitor IP addresses | Anonymize IP addresses | Tracking |
| Leave bots out of your numbers | Ignore bots | Tracking |
| See which country clicks come from | GeoIP database | Tracking |
| Get real visitor IPs and countries behind a CDN or proxy | Trusted proxy IPs or CIDR ranges (safer than Trust proxy headers alone) | Advanced |
| Make the tracking cookie wait for consent in Complianz, CookieYes or Cookiebot (clicks are still recorded) | Respect visitor consent | Integrations |
| Count clicks on links between your own pages (one site-wide total on the Dashboard) | Track clicks on internal links | Tracking |
Posts and pages
| To | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Pause all keyword links on the site | Link keywords in posts automatically | Auto-linking |
| Limit how many keyword links a post gets | Max links per keyword, Max links per page | Auto-linking |
| Add an affiliate disclosure to posts | Affiliate disclosure | Affiliate disclosure |
| Clear your page cache when links change | Clear page cache when links change | Integrations |
Broken links and reports
| To | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Scan for broken links on a schedule | Scheduled health scans | Link Intelligence |
| Log all visitor 404s, not only addresses in your sitemap | Track visitor 404s | Link Intelligence |
| Change when Link Audit calls a post Weak | Minimum links to a post, Minimum links from a post | Link Intelligence |
| Hide the internal link box in the post editor | Internal link optimization | Link Intelligence |
| Get a link health report by email | Email digest | Notifications |
| Make link, affiliate and redirect reports refresh sooner | Refresh reports every | Advanced |
Access, data and AI
| To | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Let editors manage links and see reports | Who can use Link Manager Pro | Advanced |
| Delete all plugin data when you delete the plugin (for good: back up first) | Delete all data when the plugin is deleted | Advanced |
| Connect your own OpenAI, Gemini or Anthropic key | AI provider, Provider, API key | AI Link Assistant |
| Get AI link suggestions in the post editor | Link suggestions | AI Link Assistant |
| Limit how many AI requests each user can make | Max AI requests | AI Link Assistant |
How saving works
Each of the ten settings tabs saves on its own. Your changes on a tab apply when you select Save changes on that tab, and Settings saved. confirms it. A few buttons on these tabs act straight away instead. Examples are Download database on Tracking, Import redirects on Integrations and Test connection on AI Link Assistant.
- Save changes stays disabled until you change something on the tab. Changing a value back to what was saved disables it again.
- Each changed row shows Edited. Cancel puts back the saved values. Ctrl+S (⌘S on a Mac) saves too, while there's something to save.
- When the buttons at the bottom of the tab are out of view, a bar stays on screen instead. It shows the number of unsaved changes, Cancel and Save changes.
- Leaving the tab with unsaved changes, for another tab or screen in Link Manager, asks first (Discard changes?). Discarding loses the edits on that tab. Leaving for another WordPress screen, reloading or closing the browser tab shows your browser's own warning.
- If saving fails, Couldn’t save. Your edits are kept. shows next to the buttons and Save changes becomes Retry.
- Saving sends only that tab's settings. The other tabs keep their saved values.
Migration, License, Webhooks and Backup & restore have no Save changes button. Their buttons act straight away, as their pages describe.
Default settings on a new site
Every tab page lists each setting's default in its Settings and defaults table. A site that never had Link Manager Pro starts with three values that differ from the usual defaults:
| Setting | Tab | New site | Usual default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anonymize IP addresses | Tracking | On | Off |
| Scheduled health scans | Link Intelligence | Weekly | Never |
| Add them to redirects within this site | Redirection | Off | On |
Each value is set only if its tab was never saved before. A site that had the plugin before keeps its own values, unless its data was deleted along with the plugin. Starting settings on a new site explains when they're set.
Who can open Settings
Settings is for administrators only: WordPress users with the manage_options capability, which the Administrator role has.
- Other users don't see Settings in the Link Manager menu or in the plugin's top bar.
- A settings address opened without that capability goes to the Dashboard, and the plugin refuses their requests to read or save settings.
- Who can use Link Manager Pro set to Editors and above lets editors manage links and see reports. It doesn't give them Settings, backups, webhooks or the AI key.
What editors can do is on Access for editors.
Get more out of it
- Back up your settings before a big change. On Backup & restore, a backup with Settings ticked holds your saved settings. Restoring it puts back each setting in the file and leaves the rest as they are (Back up and restore).
- Settle the prefix before you share links. Every shared or printed short link carries it, and a change leaves them to update (Short link prefix).
- Check the new-site values right after you install. If you'd rather scan monthly, or keep full IP addresses, change them before the first scans and clicks come in.
- Leave yourself out before you test. Add your own IP address to Blocked IP addresses first, so your test clicks don't show up in reports. Behind a CDN, your site sees the CDN's address instead of yours. List the CDN's addresses in Trusted proxy IPs or CIDR ranges. Turning on only Trust proxy headers lets visitors who skip the CDN fake their address (Advanced settings).
If something goes wrong
- If you can't see Settings, then your account isn't an administrator. Ask an administrator to change the setting for you.
- If a settings address opens the Dashboard instead, then the same applies: only administrators can open Settings.
- If These settings couldn’t be loaded. shows on a tab, then select Retry. Nothing on that tab can be saved until it loads, and your saved settings are unchanged.
- If Save changes stays disabled, then nothing on the tab differs from the saved values yet.
- If Couldn’t save. Your edits are kept. shows, then select Retry. If it fails again, check the tab page's "If something goes wrong" list for values that can't be saved, like an empty prefix.
More fixes are on Troubleshooting.