WordPress® 24-Hour Trainer, Second Edition

22

The Links Manager

Back in Lesson 7, I covered the creation of links in the body of a post or page. However, these kinds of links have nothing to do with the Links area of the admin menu. That leads to a links management system within WordPress, sometimes referred to as a blogroll or bookmarking system. In this lesson, we look at how to add, edit, and categorize these links, and how they can be used on your website.

MANAGING LINKS

The WordPress Links Manager operates in a very similar way to how posts are managed. From the Links area of the admin menu, you have Links, Add New, and Link Categories. The Links screen shown in Figure 22-1 is similar to Posts but with some slightly different information.

The navigation should be familiar from earlier lessons — filtering by category, searching, sorting by clicking a column title, and so on. To edit a particular link, click the name or click Edit in the text menu that appears when you mouse over a row. For the key elements of a link listing, look at the top region of the Links Add New Link screen in Figure 22-2.

Here's an overview of all your options:

• Name: This is entirely up to you — it's the title for the link that'll appear on your Links page or in the sidebar.
• Web Address: This is the URL of the website. WordPress reminds you to include the http:// at the beginning. The simplest thing, of course, is to highlight and copy the address ...