Mentionable Plugin Adds @mentions for WordPress Content with Inline Autocomplete

photo credit: gordon2208 – cc

Finding and linking to previously published content on your site is a daily necessity for bloggers and content managers. Usually, you have to search the frontend of your site or search posts/pages in the admin to track down the content you’re trying to link.

Mentionable is a handy tool, created by the folks at XWP, that saves a lot of time on internal linking. The plugin adds @mentions to the visual editor with autocomplete for any content published on the site, including posts, pages, media, and custom post types.

Mentionable includes a settings panel for specifying the post types for which the plugin will be active. You can also select the post types that the auto-completion will match against. Users can further customize the plugin by replacing the mentionable tag with a custom mentionable.php template.

The support for custom post types means that users can call out recipes, books, movies, products, or posts from any registered content type as links within pages or posts. This makes it easy to link to the backstory for new content, put together quick reference lists, cross promote products, etc. – all without ever having to leave the post editor.

I tested the plugin and found that it works as advertised. When mentioning a post you don’t even have to start with the first word of the post title. The autocomplete will pick up any word found in a title, in case your memory of the exact title is foggy.

If you decide later on that you don’t want to use the plugin anymore, it won’t affect any of the links you created previously. Your content remains intact even after the plugin is deactivated and uninstalled.

A healthy amount of internal linking is often recommended for boosting your site’s SEO. According to Moz, internal links are critical for establishing site architecture and spreading link juice. If you’re not in the habit of linking to your own content, the Mentionable plugin will help you do it with minimal effort.