WebberZone Link Warnings

WebberZone Link Warnings helps you warn users when links open in a new window or take them to external websites. It adds accessible indicators, confirmation dialogs, or redirect screens — helping you align with accessibility best practices without rewriting your content.

WebberZone Link Warnings uses a two-layer approach to process links across your entire site. For post content, it uses WordPress’s native WP_HTML_Tag_Processor class to efficiently parse and modify links at render time. Server-side filters also process widget output, navigation menus, comment text, and block-theme template parts when their General settings are enabled.

A lightweight JavaScript scan handles remaining theme output after the page loads and applies the same rules. Your stored content remains untouched — the plugin only alters rendered output and does not interfere with REST API responses or admin editing screens.

Why warn users about external links?

• target="_blank" can disorient screen reader users

• Sudden context changes impact usability

• Accessibility audits often recommend user warnings

• Agencies and site owners often need documented user warnings during accessibility reviews

Key features

• Multiple Warning Methods: Choose from inline indicators, modal dialogs, or redirect screens — or combine them

• Flexible Scope: Target external links only, or external links plus all target="_blank" links

• Customizable Indicators: Configure visual icons, text, or screen reader-only warnings

• Modal Dialog: Show a confirmation dialog before users navigate to external sites with keyboard navigation and focus management

• Dismissible Modals: Let repeat visitors tick “Don’t show again” so the modal is skipped for a session or for a set number of days, per destination domain or sitewide

• Redirect Screen: Display an intermediate page with a configurable countdown before external navigation

• Force External: Add a class to any link or wrapper element to force it to be treated as external — useful for tracking URLs or redirects that use internal paths

• Automatic Link Attributes: Add nofollow, sponsored, ugc, noopener, noreferrer and target="_blank" to external links, affiliate links, or both — no post edits needed

• Affiliate Link Marking: Flag a link or container with a class and give affiliate links their own attributes

• Domain Exclusions: Allow trusted domains to treat them as internal links

• Link Rules: Give links that match a URL pattern, such as www.amazon.com/dp/* or /go/*, their own warning method and message, or exclude them

• Hide Warnings While You Edit: Turn warnings off for logged-in users or selected roles

• Sitewide Coverage: Server-side filters process widget output, navigation menus, comment text, and block-theme template parts, while the JavaScript scan covers remaining theme output

• Post Type Control: PHP-side processing is scoped to configured post types; JS scanning covers the full page regardless

• Built to support accessibility best practices for external link behaviour in WordPress: Adds screen reader text, ARIA attributes, and keyboard-friendly modal confirmations

• Setup Wizard: Get started quickly with a guided setup wizard on first activation

• Template Override: Override the redirect screen template in your theme for full design control

• RTL Support: Full right-to-left language support for all frontend and admin styles

• Multisite Compatible: Network activate and configure per-site settings

• Privacy Focused: Does not collect personal data or send link data to third-party services

• Performance Optimized: Uses WordPress’s native WP_HTML_Tag_Processor class to process links at display time

• Developer-Friendly: Filters and actions allow developers to customize behavior, exclude domains, and output

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This plugin assists with user awareness of external navigation. It does not automatically make your website fully accessible or legally compliant.

How it works

After activation, the setup wizard guides you through the initial configuration. You can also configure the plugin at Settings > WebberZone Link Warnings.

Warning Methods:

• Inline indicators only (visual and/or screen reader text)

• Modal dialog (JavaScript-based confirmation)

• Redirect screen (intermediate page with countdown)

• Combined approach (inline + modal)

• Combined approach (inline + redirect)

Link Scope:

• External links only

• External links and all target="_blank" links

Visual Indicators:

• Icon only ( ↗ )

• Text only (customizable)

• Icon + text

• None (screen reader only)

Advanced Settings:

• Custom modal messages and button text

• Modal frequency, dismissal scope and “Don’t show again” label

• Custom redirect page content and countdown duration

• Link attributes for external and affiliate links ( nofollow, sponsored, ugc, open in a new tab, noopener, noreferrer )

• Affiliate link class and wrapper class (defaults: wzlw-affiliate, wzlw-affiliate-wrapper )

• Domain exclusion list

• Link rules by URL pattern, each with its own warning method and message

• Download warnings for all files, or for files on external sites only

• Warnings hidden from logged-in users or selected roles

• Post type selection

• Force-external class name (default: wzlw-force-external )

GDPR

WebberZone Link Warnings doesn’t collect personal data or send information to external services — making it GDPR-friendly by default.

You remain responsible for your site’s overall GDPR compliance.

Contribute

WebberZone Link Warnings is also available on Github.

So, if you’ve got a cool feature you’d like to implement in the plugin or a bug you’ve fixed, consider forking the project and sending me a pull request.

Bug reports are welcomed on GitHub. Please note that GitHub is not a support forum, and issues that aren’t suitably qualified as bugs will be closed.

Translations

org. Check out the official Translator Handbook to contribute.

Other Plugins by WebberZone

WebberZone Link Warnings is one of the many plugins developed by WebberZone. Check out our other plugins:

• Contextual Related Posts – Display related posts on your WordPress blog and feed

• Top 10 – Track daily and total visits to your blog posts and display the popular and trending posts

• WebberZone Snippetz – The ultimate snippet manager for WordPress to create and manage custom HTML, CSS or JS code snippets

• Knowledge Base – Create a knowledge base or FAQ section on your WordPress site

• Better Search – Enhance the default WordPress search with contextual results sorted by relevance

• Auto-Close – Automatically close comments, pingbacks and trackbacks and manage revisions

• Popular Authors – Display popular authors in your WordPress widget

• Followed Posts – Show a list of related posts based on what your users have read