Links are the roads of your website. Internal links help readers and search engines find your other posts. External links point to helpful sources. But as your site grows, links break, important posts get no internal links, and managing everything by hand becomes impossible.
Here is how to manage all your internal and external links in WordPress, mostly with free tools.
| Task | Best tool | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Find and add internal links | Link Whisper | Free and premium |
| Auto-link keywords | Internal Link Juicer | Free and premium |
| Find broken links | Broken Link Checker | Free |
| Control external link attributes | External Links | Free |
| See link counts per post | Rank Math or Yoast | Free |
1. Audit Your Internal Links With Link Whisper
Link Whisper is the tool I use. It scans your site and shows inbound and outbound links for every post. The free version gives basic suggestions, and the premium version adds full reports and one-click linking.
- Install Link Whisper and go to Link Whisper > Reports.
- Click Run a Link Scan.
- Open the Links Report to see each post’s inbound internal, outbound internal, and outbound external links.
- Sort by inbound links to find orphan posts (posts with no internal links pointing to them) and add links to them.
- Use the suggestions panel in the post editor to add relevant internal links as you write.
2. Auto-Link Keywords With Internal Link Juicer
Internal Link Juicer lets you assign keywords to a post. Whenever those keywords appear in other posts, it links them automatically. Use it carefully, with natural anchor text, so links feel helpful, not spammy.
3. Find and Fix Broken Links
Broken links frustrate readers and waste search engine crawl time. Broken Link Checker checks your links and alerts you when one stops working. The current version runs checks from the plugin’s cloud service, so it does not slow down your server. You can also find broken links in Link Whisper’s error report or in Google Search Console.
When you find a broken link, update it to the new URL, link to a different resource, or remove it. If you changed one of your own URLs, add a 301 redirect.
4. Control External Link Settings
External Links lets you set rules for all external links at once, such as opening in a new tab or adding nofollow or sponsored. For more on when to use these, read how and when to add nofollow to a link.
5. Check Link Counts in Your SEO Plugin
Rank Math and Yoast both show how many internal and external links each post has, right in the Posts list. It is a quick way to spot posts that need more internal links.
Internal Linking Best Practices
- Link to related posts with descriptive anchor text, not “click here”.
- Make sure every important post has several internal links pointing to it.
- Link new posts from older, popular posts.
- Check for broken links every month or two.
Learn more in our full guide to WordPress internal linking.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find broken links in WordPress?
Use the free Broken Link Checker plugin, Link Whisper’s error report, or the Pages report in Google Search Console.
What is an orphan post?
A post with no internal links pointing to it. Search engines and readers have a hard time finding it, so add links to it from related posts.
How many internal links should a post have?
There is no fixed number. Add links wherever they genuinely help the reader, usually a few per post.
Do external links help SEO?
Linking to helpful, trusted sources is good for readers and natural for SEO. Use nofollow or sponsored for paid and affiliate links.
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