External Links – nofollow, noopener & new window

83 Quality Score

Active Installs

22/30

Installed on roughly 90,000 sites, putting it comfortably ahead of the closest direct competitor and indicating broad trust in the WordPress community.

Update Freshness

25/25

Last updated within a few days of this assessment and works against the current WordPress release, so maintenance is excellent and very current.

User Rating

13/15

An 86 out of 100 from 247 reviewers is solid and well above average, suggesting most users get what they expected.

Support Health

8/15

Only two support threads exist on record, and while both are resolved, the low volume makes it hard to gauge how the developer responds under real load.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Compatible with WordPress 4.2 through 7.0 and PHP 7.2 plus, covering an extremely wide range of hosting environments with no version red flags.

Scores higher than 89% of indexed plugins

About

Internal links & external links manager: open in new window or tab, control nofollow, ugc, sponsored & noopener. SEO friendly.

Active Installs 90k+

Rating ★★★★ 4.3/5

Last Updated 2026-08-16 12:58pm GMT

Requires WordPress 4.2+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.2+

Security History

2 known vulnerabilities, all patched

2 Medium

Most recent: November 20, 2022

View details ▸

What It Does

WP External Links automatically processes all internal and external links in your WordPress content, adding attributes like rel="nofollow", rel="ugc", rel="sponsored", and rel="noopener" based on rules you configure. It can force external links to open in a new tab or window, strip tracking parameters, and even apply link icons or styles. Set-it-and-forget-it behaviour: configure once and it handles every post, page, and custom post type.

Who It's For

Content-heavy site owners who publish many outbound links and want consistent SEO and security attribute handling without touching every link manually. Particularly useful for affiliate marketers, news publishers, and review sites where link attributes directly affect compliance and search rankings.

Who Should Skip It

If your site has only a handful of outbound links, or you prefer manual control via the WordPress link dialog, this plugin is overkill. Site owners running fully static or headless setups where link processing happens at build time should also skip it.

The Bottom Line

WP External Links earns an overall quality score of 82.59 out of 100, combining 90,000 active installs, a near-perfect maintenance record, and a strong user rating of 86 out of 100. It is the most feature-complete option in its niche for sites that publish large volumes of outbound links and want consistent SEO and security attributes without manual work. The one soft spot is support volume: only two threads on record, so buyers who anticipate needing hands-on help should test it on a staging site first.

Pick this lighter alternative if you only need the new-tab behaviour and want a simpler, less feature-rich plugin without attribute automation.

Type Attribute Warnings Removal 76/100

Choose this tiny utility instead if your sole concern is silencing W3C validation warnings on target attribute types, not broader link control.

DoFollow Case by Case 73/100

Reach for this one when you want per-link dofollow control rather than blanket attribute rules across the whole site.

noindex SEO 69/100

Not a direct competitor; consider it as a companion plugin if you also need page-level indexing control alongside link attribute management.

Extend Link 65/100

Try this alternative if you want to add extra metadata or custom CSS classes to links rather than automate nofollow and noopener behaviour.