BetterLinks – Link Shortener, Link Cloaking, Redirects, Affiliate Link Manager & MCP vs UpdraftPlus

BetterLinks is the complete link management plugin for WordPress. Turn long, ugly URLs into short, branded, memorable links — then cloak them, redirect them, organize them and track every single click, all from one dashboard inside WordPress. No third-party URL shortener. No monthly subscription for basic link tracking. Your links live on your own domain, and your click data stays in your own database. 👉 See All Features | Documentation | Live Demo | Upgrade to PRO 🤖 NEW: Manage Your Links With AI (MCP Connector) BetterLinks now ships a built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, so AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor and VS Code can work with your links directly — in plain English. Ask your assistant to “create a short link for this affiliate offer”, “which links got the most clicks last month?” or “put every Black Friday link in its own category”, and it does the work inside your own dashboard. Runs on your own site — no hosted broker and no third-party service; your links and click data never leave your server 14 built-in tools — create, update and delete links, manage categories and tags, read click analytics, and read or update settings Two ways to connect — a one-time OAuth approval for Claude and ChatGPT, or a copy-paste command for Claude Code, Cursor and VS Code Off by default — nothing is exposed to anyone until you switch it on in BetterLinks → MCP Scope-aware — apps that ask for read-only access are enforced as read-only and clearly labelled in your dashboard Revocable any time — reset the connection token, or revoke a single connected app, with one click Admin-scoped — every action runs as the administrator who approved it and respects that account’s permissions Built-in health check — a live “Test connection” round trip tells you exactly which step failed if a client can’t connect Built on the WordPress Abilities API, bundled with the plugin — there are no companion plugins to install. 🔗 Create Short Links In Seconds Paste a long URL, pick a slug, hit publish. BetterLinks generates clean short links like yoursite.com/go/deal that are easy to share, easy to remember and impossible to mistype. Instant URL shortener — shorten any internal or external URL in a couple of clicks Custom slugs — write your own, or auto-generate from the title, target URL, or a random string One-click copy & share — grab any short link straight from the dashboard Duplicate & bulk actions — clone links, bulk delete with undo, drag-and-drop to reorder Quick Link Creation — create short links from outside the WordPress admin using an API key Custom fields — attach your own metadata to any link ↪️ Powerful Redirects & Link Cloaking Send visitors exactly where you want, with the redirect type that fits the job. 301, 302 & 307 redirects — permanent, temporary and method-preserving Link cloaking (PRO) — keep your branded short URL in the address bar the whole visit Wildcard redirects — match a whole path pattern with /folder/* Parameter forwarding — pass query strings straight through to the destination Case-sensitive slugs — treat /Deal and /deal as separate links when you need to Nofollow & sponsored tags — mark affiliate links correctly for search engines Force HTTPS (PRO) — every redirect goes out secure, whatever is stored on the link 📊 Real-Time Click Tracking & Link Analytics Know which links actually work. BetterLinks records every click and turns it into reports you can act on — no external analytics account required. Total & unique clicks for every link Real-time analytics dashboard with an interactive date-range calendar Traffic sources — top referrers, social clicks, campaign performance Geographic reports — see which countries your clicks come from Browser, OS & device breakdown (PRO) Per-link analytics (PRO) — a full report for any single link Top & worst performers (PRO) — find your winners and your dead weight Bot filtering — automated traffic is detected and kept out of your numbers Exclude your own IP (PRO) — stop your team’s clicks from skewing the data Google Analytics 4 & Facebook Pixel (PRO) — push click events server-side 💰 Built For Affiliate Marketers BetterLinks is a full affiliate link manager, not just a shortener. Cloak affiliate links (PRO) so long tracking URLs never appear in your content Auto-Link Keywords (PRO) — turn chosen keywords into affiliate links across your whole site automatically Affiliate link disclosure (PRO) — FTC-friendly notices via block, shortcode, or site-wide rule Uncloak per link or category (PRO) — stay compliant with Amazon Associates and similar programs Sponsored & nofollow attributes built into every link Broken link scanner (PRO) — catch dead affiliate links before they cost you commission 🗂️ Organize Hundreds Of Links Without The Mess Categories & tags with bulk assignment and per-term click stats List view & board view — pick the layout that suits how you work Compact mode — a dense, single-line list when you want to scan everything at a glance Search, filter & sort by category, tag, date, clicks or favorites Favorites — pin the links you touch every day Role-based permissions (PRO) — decide exactly who can create, edit, or view links and analytics 🚀 Marketing & Campaign Tools UTM Builder — attach campaign parameters to any link Global UTM templates (PRO) — save presets and apply them in bulk Dynamic redirects (PRO) — A/B split testing, geo-targeting, device targeting and time-based rules on a single short URL Link scheduling & expiration (PRO) — publish later, expire by date or click count, with a fallback URL Password-protected links (PRO) — gate a short link behind a password Custom link previews (PRO) — control the title, description and image when your link is shared on social Custom domain (PRO) — serve short links from your own branded domain AI Bulk Link Generator (PRO) — generate short links across many posts at once ⚡ Fast, Lightweight & Developer-Friendly BetterLinks is engineered for speed. Redirects resolve from an optimized cache instead of hammering your database, so short links stay fast even with tens of thousands of them. Optimized queries and a JSON-backed redirect cache Works with any theme Gutenberg block and Elementor integration for inserting links while you write Fluent Boards integration — manage short links directly from your project tasks Full REST API for developers MCP server & WordPress Abilities API support — expose your links to AI agents and automations Translation-ready and WPML-compatible 🔄 Switching From Another Plugin? Move your existing links across in one click — no CSV wrangling, no lost redirects. Pretty Links → BetterLinks ThirstyAffiliates → BetterLinks Simple 301 Redirects → BetterLinks Plus CSV import/export for links and click history 🏆 Why Choose BetterLinks Your data stays yours — links and analytics live in your own WordPress database No per-click pricing — unlike hosted URL shorteners Built for scale — thousands of links without slowing your site down Actively maintained by WPDeveloper, trusted by millions of WordPress users Free forever core — shortening, redirects, categories, analytics and migration are all in the free plugin 🔥 Upgrade To BetterLinks PRO Unlock the full toolkit: link cloaking, dynamic redirects with A/B split testing, geo & device targeting, individual link analytics, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel integration, auto-link keywords, affiliate disclosures, password protection, link scheduling & expiry, the broken link and full-site scanners, custom domains, role management, email reporting and the AI Bulk Link Generator. Get BetterLinks PRO → 💜 More From WPDeveloper 🔝 Essential Addons For Elementor – The most popular Elementor extensions library, with 2 million+ active users. 👉 Essential Blocks For Gutenberg – Advanced block library to supercharge the WordPress editor. 🔔 NotificationX – Social proof & FOMO marketing solution that increases conversion rates. 📄 EmbedPress – Embed content from 250+ sources with one click, in Gutenberg and Elementor. 📝 BetterDocs – Documentation & knowledge base solution that reduces your support load. ⏰ SchedulePress – Complete WordPress scheduling with an editorial calendar and social sharing. ☁️ Templately – 5000+ ready templates for Elementor & Gutenberg with cloud collaboration. 🎨 Flexia – Lightweight, customizable, multipurpose WordPress theme. 👨‍💻 Documentation & Support Documentation & tutorials YouTube playlist Community support forum Facebook community Loving BetterLinks? Leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review

The UpdraftPlus Backup & Migration Plugin is trusted by the WordPress community to backup, restore and migrate their WordPress websites. UpdraftPlus is actively installed on more than 3 million websites around the world. Backup with UpdraftPlus UpdraftPlus is the world’s highest ranking and most popular scheduled backup and migration plugin. Backup to your preferred storage location and restore in just three clicks. Backup to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift or email. The paid version also allows you to backup to Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, pCloud, WebDAV or UpdraftVault, our integrated storage option for UpdraftPlus. Backup manually or schedule to run every 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours, daily, weekly, monthly or fortnightly. Restore with UpdraftPlus Your WordPress website is vulnerable. Your site may get hacked. Something could go wrong with an update or your server could crash. You might need to reverse a change made or a mistake caused by human error. Whatever the reason, you can restore your WordPress website in just a few clicks with UpdraftPlus. Choose which components to restore (e.g. plugins, themes, database etc.), click again to restore, then click again to return to the main screen. Migrate with UpdraftPlus It’s easy to migrate your WordPress website to another web host, server or domain with this free version of UpdraftPlus. To migrate, simply download your database, plugins, themes etc. from the source site, then upload them into your destination site. When migrating, a built-in search-and-replace engine identifies old strings and replaces these to reflect the new location. UpdraftPlus saves you time and reduces the risk of broken links or missing files associated with manual migrations. Why UpdraftPlus? Writing a reliable backup and migration plugin that ‘just works’ consistently across millions of different WordPress deployments is hard. UpdraftPlus is relied upon to do exactly that. We’re trusted and actively deployed on more websites around the world than any other WordPress backup and migration plugin. UpdraftPlus: Backs up, migrates and restores Offers a huge number of remote storage locations Allows you to schedule backups, so you can ‘set and forget’ Is comprehensive and easy to use Is proven to work on over 3 million sites. UpdraftPlus Premium The free version of UpdraftPlus will back up and migrate your website perfectly well. However if you need more features and options you can purchase our Premium version. Backup and Migrate with UpdraftPlus Premium, and: Get automatic backups before updates. Restore the very latest version if a WordPress or plugin update breaks your site. Backup Incrementally. Changes are added to the master, saving server resources vs repeatedly backing up in full. Get more remote storage options including Microsoft OneDrive, SFTP, Microsoft Azure, WebDAV, Google Cloud, SCP, Backblaze and pCloud. Get 1GB of integrated storage with UpdraftVault for 99.999% reliability, redundancy and scalability. Get more control over how many backups are stored in a specified interval. Restore from other backup plugins including BackWPup, BackupWordPress, Simple Backups and more. Run backups at set times e.g. during periods of low traffic. Backup to more than one location for added protection. Get detailed reports. Includes cryptographic checksums so you can verify the integrity of the backup files and more. Get Premium migration. Migrating to the destination site is more direct and can be done from the source site. Get Multisite / multi-network compatibility. Backup non-WP files and databases e.g. tables belonging to your e-commerce store or customisations to WordPress core. Get database encryption. Manage your backups and migrations from the WP-CLI. Get Premium Support. Find out more on our comparison page. UpdraftPlus Premium is available for purchase here. Managing multiple websites? UpdraftCentral is a powerful remote control dashboard for WordPress that allows you to manage your backups, as well as updates, users, pages, posts, plugins and themes from one central location. Choose between: UpdraftCentral (free, self-hosted) UpdraftCentral Premium (paid-for, self-hosted) UpdraftCentral Cloud (paid-for, fully-hosted) Optimize your sites centrally by combining the power of WP-Optimize and UpdraftCentral or manage your backups centrally by combining the power of UpdraftPlus with UpdraftCentral. Need to create a temporary clone of your site? UpdraftClone makes it quick and easy to create a temporary sandbox for changes you want to try out. Simply select the versions of WordPress and PHP that you want, and we’ll do the rest. More about UpdraftClone The full suite of plugins from Team Updraft and friends UpdraftPlus. Backup, migrate and restore. Rated 5* on the plugin directory and trusted by more than 3 million WordPress website owner WP-Optimize. Clean the database, compress images and caching. Optimize your WordPress website. 5* user rating. 1 million + active installs. All-In-One Security (AIOS). Secure your WordPress website. Comprehensive, feature rich and easy to use. 5* user rating and 1 million + active installs. WP Overnight. Quality Extensions for your WooCommerce store. 5* rated invoicing, order and product management, customer management solutions and more. Easy Updates Manager. Take control of updates. Lots of features for free, and a Premium version with even more – over 300,000 users. Internal Link Juicer.Boost your SEO. Automate internal links within your WordPress website. Save time and rank higher in the search engines. For other useful, free plugins see our lead developer’s profile, here. Are you multilingual? Can you translate? Do you want to help people that speak your language to backup, migrate and restore their WordPress websites? The UpdraftPlus backup, migration and restoration plugin is ready and waiting. The translation process is easy, and web-based – please go here for instructions: https://updraftplus.com/translate/. Or, if you’re already an expert WordPress translator, just pick out the .pot file from the wp-content/plugins/updraftplus/languages/ directory – if you scan for translatable strings manually, then you need to get these functions: _x(), __(), _e(), _ex(), log_e(). Many thanks to our existing translators. License Copyright 2011-24 David Anderson This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Non-English translators are provided by volunteers, and wordpress.org does not give plugin developers control over their translations; thus relying on them is at your own risk; UpdraftPlus cannot guarantee that translations from the original English are accurate. We recognise and thank those mentioned at https://updraftplus.com/acknowledgements/ for code and/or libraries used and/or modified under the terms of their open source licences.