BASIX Auto Links

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BASIX Auto Links automatically inserts internal links into your WordPress content. Define keyword-to-URL rules, and the plugin scans every post and page — replacing matching keywords with links to the pages you specify. It also links post titles and taxonomy terms automatically.

Internal linking is one of the most effective (and most overlooked) SEO strategies. This plugin handles it for you, so you can focus on creating content instead of manually linking every page.

How It Works

The plugin works in three layers, processed in order:

1. Custom Keyword Rules — You define rules like web design, website design, /services/web-design. Whenever those keywords appear in your content, the plugin automatically links them to the URL you specified.
2. Post Title Matching — The plugin scans your content for mentions of other post/page titles on your site and links them automatically.
3. Taxonomy Term Matching — Category and tag names found in your content are linked to their archive pages.

Links are inserted at display time — your actual post content in the database is never modified.

Key Features

• Custom keyword-to-URL rules — Map any keyword or phrase to any internal URL
• Post title auto-linking — Automatically link mentions of your other posts and pages
• Taxonomy auto-linking — Link category and tag mentions to their archive pages
• AI-powered suggestions (optional) — Use Claude (Anthropic) or OpenAI to scan your site and automatically discover linking opportunities
• Smart duplicate prevention — Prevents the same keyword from being linked multiple times on one page
• Configurable link limits — Set max links per page and per keyword
• Heading protection — Never inserts links inside h1-h6 headings
• Image caption protection — Skips links inside figcaption elements
• Self-link prevention — Never links a page to itself
• Dead link prevention — Automatically skips rules pointing to URLs that do not exist on your site
• WooCommerce compatible — Automatically skips cart, checkout, and account pages
• Noindex exclusion — Optionally exclude noindex posts from being linked to (Yoast and SmartCrawl supported)
• Custom post type support — Works with any public post type
• Per-post exclusion — Disable auto-linking on individual posts via post meta
• Case-sensitive or insensitive matching
• Wildcard URL exclusions — Exclude entire URL patterns from processing
• RSS feed support — Optionally process RSS feeds
• Open in new tab and nofollow options
• Divi theme compatible
• Object cache friendly — Results are cached for performance
• Import / Export settings — Move your configuration between sites with a single JSON file

AI-Powered Link Discovery (Optional)

The AI feature is completely optional and requires your own API key. You can choose between:

• Claude (Anthropic) — Using Claude Sonnet 4 or Claude Haiku 4.5
• OpenAI — Using GPT-4o, GPT-4o Mini, or GPT-4.1

The AI analyzes your site content inventory and suggests keyword-to-URL rules that you can review and approve before they are applied.

About the Author

BASIX Auto Links is built and maintained by CHIROBASIX, a chiropractic marketing agency focused on helping practices grow through better websites, SEO, and patient-generation systems. We built this plugin to automate the internal linking work our team does for client sites — and released it free so any WordPress site can benefit.

Learn more about CHIROBASIX at https://chirobasix.com/.

External services

This plugin does NOT connect to any external service by default. All core functionality (keyword rules, post title linking, taxonomy linking) runs entirely on your own WordPress site with no outbound requests.

The plugin only connects to an external AI service if you opt in by entering an API key in the settings and manually clicking the «Scan Site for Link Suggestions» button. You can choose one of two providers:

Anthropic Claude API

What the service is and what it is used for: Anthropic’s Claude API is a hosted large language model used to analyze your site’s published content and suggest keyword-to-URL linking rules.

When data is sent: Only when you have entered a Claude API key, selected «Claude (Anthropic)» as the AI Provider, and clicked the «Scan Site for Link Suggestions» button on the plugin’s settings page. No data is ever sent automatically or on a schedule.

What data is sent: A one-time request containing your site’s home URL, the titles, relative URLs, post types, and short excerpts (approximately 80 words) of your published posts, pages, and custom post types (up to 500 items), plus the names and relative URLs of your public taxonomy terms (up to 100 items). No private content, no user data, no passwords, and no administrative information is sent.

Provider links:
* Anthropic Terms of Service: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms
* Anthropic Privacy Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy

OpenAI API

What the service is and what it is used for: OpenAI’s API is a hosted large language model service used to analyze your site’s published content and suggest keyword-to-URL linking rules.

When data is sent: Only when you have entered an OpenAI API key, selected «OpenAI» as the AI Provider, and clicked the «Scan Site for Link Suggestions» button on the plugin’s settings page. No data is ever sent automatically or on a schedule.

What data is sent: A one-time request containing your site’s home URL, the titles, relative URLs, post types, and short excerpts (approximately 80 words) of your published posts, pages, and custom post types (up to 500 items), plus the names and relative URLs of your public taxonomy terms (up to 100 items). No private content, no user data, no passwords, and no administrative information is sent.

Provider links:
* OpenAI Terms of Use: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use
* OpenAI Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy

Step-by-Step Setup Guide

After activating the plugin, follow these steps to get the most out of it:

Step 1: Enable Auto-Linking

Go to Settings > Auto Links. The «Enable Automatic Linking» toggle should already be on. If not, enable it and click Save Settings.

Step 2: Choose Which Content Types to Process

Under Content Types to Process, check the boxes for the content types where you want links automatically inserted. Most sites should check Posts and Pages at minimum.

Step 3: Choose What to Link To

Under Link To, select which content types and taxonomies should be used as link targets:

• Post Types — Check «Posts» and «Pages» so that post titles found in your content will be auto-linked. If you have custom post types (like Services or Products), check those too.
• Taxonomies — Check «Categories» and «Tags» to auto-link category and tag names to their archive pages.

Step 4: Add Custom Keyword Rules

This is where the plugin really shines. Under Custom Keyword Links, add one rule per line in this format:

keyword1, keyword2, /target-url

Examples:

web design, website design, website development, /services/web-design
SEO, search engine optimization, SEO services, /services/seo
contact us, get in touch, /contact

Tips:
* The last item on each line is always the URL — everything before it is a keyword.
* Use relative URLs (starting with /) so your rules survive domain changes.
* You can list multiple keyword variations on one line, separated by commas.
* The plugin automatically skips rules where the target URL does not exist, so you can safely add rules in advance.

Step 5: Configure Link Limits

Under Link Limits, set:

• Max links per page — How many auto-links should appear on a single page (recommended: 10-15).
• Max links per keyword — How many times a single keyword can be linked on one page (recommended: 1-2).

Step 6: Review Behavior Settings

The defaults work well for most sites. Key settings to review:

• Only link on single posts/pages — Recommended ON. Prevents links from appearing on archive pages.
• Prevent duplicate links — Recommended ON. Ensures each keyword is only linked once per page.
• Do not link inside headings — Recommended ON. Keeps your headings clean.
• Exclude noindex posts — Recommended ON if you use Yoast or SmartCrawl.

Step 7: Set Up Exclusions (Optional)

If there are keywords you never want linked, or specific posts/pages where auto-linking should be disabled:

• Ignored keywords — Enter comma-separated keywords to skip (e.g., home, about).
• Ignored posts/pages — Enter post IDs or relative URLs. Supports wildcards (e.g., /blog/* to exclude all blog posts).

Step 8: Use AI Suggestions (Optional)

If you have a Claude or OpenAI API key:

1. Select your preferred AI Provider (Claude or OpenAI).
2. Enter your API Key.
3. Choose a Model (the recommended option balances cost and quality).
4. Click Save Settings first, then click Scan Site for Link Suggestions.
5. Wait for the AI to analyze your content (this usually takes 30-60 seconds).
6. Review the suggestions in the table that appears.
7. Uncheck any suggestions you do not want.
8. Click Apply Selected to add the approved rules to your Custom Keywords.

Step 9: Save and Verify

Click Save Settings to save your configuration. Visit your site’s frontend and check that links are appearing correctly in your content.