The reason the caption doesn't display links is because it is using the excerpt, which doesn't store links. You can put links in the description (which uses the post content). In a theme I'm building right now the client wants the featured image displayed with the caption, and the caption needs links in it. So I'm using this: the_post_thumbnail( 'be_featured' ); $caption = get_post( get_post_thumbnail_id() )->post_content; if( !empty( $caption ) ) echo ' ' . $caption . ' '; This doesn't work with the "Insert into Post" though since that still uses the excerpt.