Simon’s Auto Keyword Linker is a lightweight, fast, and intelligent WordPress plugin that automatically transforms your selected keywords into links across posts and pages.

Perfect for internal linking, topic clusters, dictionaries/glossaries, affiliate linking, and improving SEO at scale — all without bloat.

🚀 Key Features

• Unlimited keyword → URL pairs
• Link each keyword up to 1–50 times per post/page
• Never links a keyword on its own target page (prevents self-linking)
• Case-insensitive, whole-word matching
• Skips headings (H1–H6), existing links, and all HTML tags
• Sorts keywords by length to prevent overlapping/partial matches
• Clean, efficient engine based on safe regex & placeholders
• Works with Gutenberg, Classic Editor, page builders, and most themes
• Fully compatible with caching plugins

🔍 Smart Keyword Scanner (New!)

Click one button and the plugin will:

• Scan all published posts and pages
• Detect highly-relevant multi-word phrases already appearing on your site
• Score and rank them based on frequency + title relevance
• Suggest the best internal page to link each phrase to
• Allow one-click add or delete (“Trash”) suggestions

No more guessing what to link — get data-driven internal linking recommendations instantly.

🔗 External Link Control

For external URLs, you can enable:

• target="_blank"
• rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"

Internal links remain dofollow for optimal SEO.

🤖 How the Linking Engine Works

• Matches whole words only — never inside other words or URLs
• Never links inside headings (

  –

  )

• Ensures links are not placed inside existing tags
• Automatically decodes HTML entities like & → &
• Prevents short-keyword conflicts by linking longest phrases first

1. Upload the simons-auto-keyword-linker folder to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
3. Go to Settings → Keyword Links
4. Add your keyword|URL pairs (one per line)
5. Optional:
   • Set max links per keyword
   • Enable new-tab + nofollow for external links
   • Use the built-in Smart Keyword Scanner to auto-discover new keyword opportunities

1.8.8

• Improved: Cleaner, more intuitive UI for the Smart Keyword Scanner
• Added: Bulk delete (“Trash Selected”) option in keyword suggestions
• Added: Option to select maximum words per keyword phrase when scanning
• Added: Option to set minimum occurrences (1–5) to reduce low-quality or accidental keyword phrases
• Improved: More accurate keyword and phrase scanning
• Improved: Better filtering of repeated or low-value phrases
• Improved: More reliable handling of punctuation and special characters in scanned phrases
• Improved: Reduced duplicate suggestions and overall scan quality

1.8.7

• Added: Smart Keyword Scanner — auto-discover valuable phrases from your content
• Added: One-click suggestion of best internal link targets
• Added: Select-all and bulk-add functionality in keyword generator
• Improved: Better UI/UX in settings

1.8.6

• Added: Option to open external links in new tab with rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”
• Added: Visual indicator (Internal / External) in settings table
• Improved: Better escaping and WordPress coding standards compliance
• Fixed: All known bugs and layout issues

1.7.0

• First public release.