Link Behavior
Control how external links behave across your site — nofollow, new tab, sponsored attributes, UGC markup, URL structure cleanup, attachment redirects, and breadcrumb navigation.
Where to Find This Tab
Go to SEO Rank Genius → Indexing & Sitemaps → Link Behavior (fifth tab under the “Main” group).
External Link Control
These settings control how outbound links in your content are handled. All changes are applied dynamically on render — your database content is never modified.
Adds
target="_blank" to all outbound linksAdds
rel="nofollow" — preserves your link equityTargets links to .jpg, .png, .gif, .webp files
Adds
rel="ugc" to links in commentsAdds
rel="sponsored" to affiliate linksAttribute Reference
| Attribute | Code | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| nofollow | rel="nofollow" | Tells search engines not to pass link equity to the target URL |
| UGC | rel="ugc" | Marks user-generated content links (comments, forum posts) |
| Sponsored | rel="sponsored" | Marks paid or affiliate links per Google’s guidelines |
Affiliate / Cloaked Link Prefixes
When the Sponsored attribute is enabled, the plugin checks each outbound link against your prefix list. Add one prefix per line:
/recommends/
/affiliate/
Any link whose path starts with one of these prefixes gets rel="sponsored" automatically.
URL Structure
Clean up your URL structure for better SEO and user experience.
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Strip Category Base | Removes /category/ from URLs. E.g., /category/news/ becomes /news/. Shorter URLs improve CTR. |
| Redirect Attachment Pages | WordPress creates a page for every uploaded media file. This 301-redirects them to the parent post, preventing thin content issues. |
| Orphan Attachment Redirect | When an attachment has no parent post, redirect it to this URL. Leave empty to redirect to the homepage. |
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs provide a navigational trail (e.g., Home › Blog › Post Title) that helps users and search engines understand your site hierarchy.
Breadcrumb Settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Breadcrumbs | Outputs breadcrumb navigation on posts and pages. Includes JSON-LD BreadcrumbList schema automatically. |
| Separator | Choose from: » / – — | · › ▸ |
| Home Label | Custom text for the first breadcrumb item (default: “Home”) |
| Show on Posts/Pages | Toggle breadcrumbs per post type. |
Troubleshooting
Nofollow Not Appearing in Source Code
- Clear your page cache — caching plugins serve stale HTML.
- The plugin applies attributes dynamically on render, so they won’t appear if you inspect the raw database content.
- Check the HTML source of the live page (
Ctrl+U), not the WordPress editor.
Category URLs Still Show /category/
- After toggling “Strip Category Base,” go to Settings → Permalinks and click “Save Changes” to flush rewrite rules.
- Check if another plugin (Yoast, Rank Math) also manages the category base — disable one to avoid conflicts.