Simmi Ahuja

Ozi External Links is a lightweight external link and affiliate link management plugin designed to help site owners control outbound links without unnecessary complexity or performance overhead.
Unmanaged external links can silently leak SEO authority or create affiliate compliance risks. This plugin provides clear, guided controls to manage those links responsibly while keeping everything fully transparent and local to your WordPress site.
All functionality runs entirely on your own server. 
No external APIs, no tracking, and no third-party services.
<h3>How it helps your site</h3>
<ul>
<li>Protects SEO by managing outbound link attributes</li>
<li>Helps meet Google’s affiliate disclosure recommendations</li>
<li>Creates clean, branded redirect links you control</li>
<li>Provides lightweight click insights without analytics bloat</li>
<li>Keeps full ownership of your data</li>
</ul>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>
External Link Controls 
Automatically apply <code>target="_blank"</code> and <code>rel="nofollow"</code> to external links.
</li>
<li>
Affiliate Compliance Option 
Optionally add <code>rel="sponsored"</code> to outbound affiliate links.
</li>
<li>
Trusted Domain Whitelist 
Exclude specific domains (partners, tools, or sub-domains) from external link rules.
</li>
<li>
Optional External Link Indicator 
Add a subtle arrow icon to external links so users know when they are leaving your site.
</li>
<li>
Built-in Link Cloaking 
Create clean redirect URLs such as <code>/go/product</code> without creating pages or rewrite rules.
</li>
<li>
Click Tracking 
View how many times each cloaked link is used, including last click time.
</li>
<li>
Labels & Notes 
Add usage notes to cloaked links to track where and why they are used.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Design philosophy</h3>
Ozi External Links is a lightweight plugin that helps you manage external and affiliate links safely and responsibly.
It allows you to control outbound link behaviour, apply SEO-friendly attributes, and create clean redirect links without affecting site performance.
All processing happens locally on your WordPress site. 
No external APIs, no tracking, and no third-party services.

Ozi External Links

Lightweight, SEO-safe external link and affiliate link management for WordPress.

Royal Plugins

The most powerful free affiliate link management and URL shortener plugin for WordPress.
Royal Links is a complete link cloaking, click tracking, and link management solution that gives you every tool you need to shorten, cloak, track, and optimize your affiliate links and marketing URLs — without paying a cent. No “lite” version, no feature gates, no upsells. Everything competitors charge $200/yr for is included free.
Whether you manage affiliate links, run marketing campaigns, track click performance, or just want clean branded short URLs on your own domain, Royal Links has you covered.
<h4>Link Management</h4>
<ul>
<li>Branded Short URLs — Create clean links using your own domain</li>
<li>Multiple Redirect Types — 301, 302, and 307 redirects</li>
<li>Link Categories & Tags — Organize everything with taxonomies</li>
<li>Nofollow / Sponsored / UGC Attributes — Stay compliant with search engine guidelines</li>
<li>Password-Protected Links — Gate access to sensitive destinations</li>
<li>Link Scheduling — Set start and end dates for any link</li>
<li>Affiliate Disclosure Notices — Automatically display FTC-compliant disclosures</li>
</ul>
<h4>Click Tracking & Analytics</h4>
<ul>
<li>Detailed Click Analytics — Browser, device, OS, referrer, and country data</li>
<li>Dashboard Widget — At-a-glance stats with period-over-period comparison</li>
<li>QR Scan Tracking — See how many clicks come from your QR codes</li>
<li>UTM Parameter Builder — Build campaign-tagged URLs without leaving WordPress</li>
</ul>
<h4>Advanced Redirects</h4>
<ul>
<li>Geo-Targeting — Redirect visitors to different URLs based on their country</li>
<li>Device-Based Redirects — Send desktop, mobile, and tablet users to different destinations</li>
<li>Time-Based Redirects — Automatically swap destinations on a schedule</li>
<li>A/B Split Testing — Test multiple destinations and track which converts best</li>
</ul>
<h4>Content & Display</h4>
<ul>
<li>QR Code Generator — Generate downloadable QR codes for any link</li>
<li>Product Display Boxes — Eye-catching product cards with images and CTAs</li>
<li>Automatic Keyword Linking — Define keywords and Royal Links auto-links them across your content</li>
<li>Gutenberg Block & Classic Editor — Insert links from either editor</li>
</ul>
<h4>Site Health</h4>
<ul>
<li>Broken Link Checker — Automatic monitoring flags dead destinations</li>
<li>Link Health Dashboard — See all link issues at a glance</li>
</ul>
<h4>Migration Wizard</h4>
Switching from another plugin? Royal Links imports your links, categories, and click data in one click:
<ul>
<li>Pretty Links — Full import including groups and clicks</li>
<li>ThirstyAffiliates — Full import including categories and click data</li>
<li>BetterLinks — Full import including analytics</li>
</ul>
<h4>Why Royal Links?</h4>
Most link management plugins offer basic features for free and lock the good stuff behind a paid upgrade. Royal Links takes a different approach — every feature is included from day one. Geo-targeting, A/B testing, QR codes, auto-linking, product displays, device redirects, and link scheduling are all built in with no restrictions.
<h4>Powered by Royal Plugins</h4>
Royal Links is built by the team behind <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/royal-mcp/" rel="ugc">Royal MCP</a> and <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/sitevault-backup-restore-migration/" rel="ugc">SiteVault</a> — free WordPress plugins trusted by thousands of sites. We believe powerful tools should be accessible to everyone.
<h3>External Services</h3>
This plugin connects to the following external service under specific conditions:
<h4>ip-api.com</h4>
Royal Links uses the <a href="http://ip-api.com" rel="nofollow ugc">ip-api.com</a> geolocation API to determine a visitor’s country for the geo-targeting feature. This service is only contacted when a site administrator has configured country-based redirect rules on a specific link. If no geo-targeting rules are configured, no data is sent to this service.
When geo-targeting is active on a link and a visitor clicks that link, the visitor’s IP address is sent to ip-api.com to determine their country. The country result is then used to decide which destination URL the visitor should be redirected to.
<ul>
<li>Service URL: <a href="http://ip-api.com" rel="nofollow ugc">http://ip-api.com</a></li>
<li>Terms of Service / Privacy Policy: <a href="https://ip-api.com/docs/legal" rel="nofollow ugc">https://ip-api.com/docs/legal</a></li>
<li>Data sent: Visitor IP address (only when geo-targeting rules exist on the clicked link)</li>
<li>Data received: Country code for the visitor’s IP address</li>
<li>Data retention: Royal Links does not store the IP-to-country lookup. The country is used only for the redirect decision. IP addresses are only stored in the click log if the “Store IP Addresses” setting is enabled (disabled by default).</li>
<li>When it is used: Only when a visitor clicks a link that has geo-targeting redirect rules configured by the site admin</li>
<li>When it is NOT used: If no links have geo-targeting rules, this service is never contacted</li>
</ul>

Royal Links

Free affiliate link management, URL shortener, and link cloaking plugin with geo-targeting, A/B testing, QR codes, and auto-linking. No premium tier.

Ozi External Links vs Royal Links