User's Manual

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3.5 Managing Links
Most websites run a links section. With many it's simply a page or a post full of links
and connections. With WordPress you can do this, however, a more powerful feature
is to use the proper link management tools. In the Dashboard, click on ‘Manage’ then
'Links' to manage your links, and you will see the following:
As you can see, the initial installation is already populated with links. As these aren't
relevant to your website,delete them all: Simply select each link you don't want, then
click the Delete button. You’ll see also that you can filter this view – particularly
useful if you manage a large number of links.
3.5.1 Creating link categories
Before creating new links, you need first to create some suitable categories, so click
on the 'Link Categories' tab to do this. In here, create a link category called News,
and another called Products.
It’s also possible to create categories on the fly – just like when writing posts. This is
more limited in power, but useful.
You can’t delete the Blogroll category while it’s the default category. To change
your default category go to Settings, then Writing and change the Default Link
Category value. For now we’ll leave it at Blogroll.
3.5.2 Creating links
Now we’ve created our Link Categories above, you can create some links quickly
and easily in Manage Links.
To create a new one, click add_new and you’ll see the following:
The most commonly used items are on display first and you should create the link
and categorise it accordingly.
Let’s create a link the BBC News website:
You also have a number of advanced options available to you which are in the
extending boxes below – Target, Link Relationship, and Advanced. Please note the
importance of using http:// before a link.
3.5.3 Target
Target is a strangely marked and named option:
The following list explains the different effects of each target option:
_blank Will open the link in a new window – handy where you need a link to not take
someone away from your website, but should only be used with good reason as
people hate getting a new window after following every link.
_top Opens the link in the top most frame or window. This is very rarely used and
should only be considered if you’ve got good reason for it – it can be incredibly
annoying to visitors!
None Conventional behaviour – the link will open in the current window – this is
generally the best option to use.