Manual Links Vs. Smart Links

[HashtagHustler]

Hey Everybody,

Is there any downside to the smart link plugins that I see all over wordpress? Basically in short I enter a keyword and where I want that link to go (primarily internal) and set the parameters of repetition etc and it automatically adds the link to that.

Now other than the obvious situation where it might put a link in an awkward place, is there anything wrong with this sort of software? Part of me things that this sort of software would not be liked by Google, and that it isn't really getting counted as a true link, but i wanted to see if there were other thoughts or experience with this.

[DennisSeymour]

This is a hard thing to answer as I've done both ways lol. For smaller sites, I wouldn't really mind but for bigger ones, manual is better. Manual interlinking is definitely better because you can do it using different phrases that can be related to another post rather than automatically showing the same words. It's just more organic that way and better for user experience which Google is keen on.

I've actually done this auto linking to category pages instead of posts on my older sites so I've played/experimented with this function. I still would recommend the old fashioned manual way as it makes more sense.

[RyanPurkey]

I would be pretty strict on using tools like these myself as you'd want to make sure you avoid creating pages that are too link heavy and begin to get a spammy feel to them. In some cases it could be quite handy though if you're trying to link up older pages that have very specific product names that would point to specific product pages.  Like many tools, it can be used poorly or well.

[dynamyt100]

Automation is always risky as you never really have control over the results. As mentioned by Ryan and Dennis, you should put in the effort to create your links manually

[Griffo]

Personally, I wouldn't use it. In my opinion it looks incredibly spammy, unless it's a blog post referring to another post or page on the website.