Link Footnotes
Adds a section to the bottom of your pages and posts listing any external links.
Consider an alternative
Link Footnotes shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 1/5 and was last updated 15 years ago, and scores 18/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 14 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 3.3 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Link Footnotes stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| footnote | >100 |
| link | >100 |
| links | >100 |
| post | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 1 from 1 reviews
About Link Footnotes
From the official readme · v0.1.7Description
Adds a section to the bottom of your pages and posts listing any external
links.
Only links starting with http or https are included so ftp, mailto, etc
will not be included in the list; although it would be pretty trival to
edit the plugin to allow them to. Likewise any links that start with your
blog URL are also excluded.
For more information, you can visit Nutt.net
Installation
- Upload the
link-footnotesfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- It’s on by default, so any posts and pages with external links will display footnotes once activated
Options
There are three options on the Settings -> Writing page.
Default On
Whether you want the footnotes to display by default or not. If cleared then
the links will not be displayed even if there are external links. You can force
the links to show even if it’s turned off using meta fields (see below)
Heading
Text that you want to display above the list. By default this is <h2>Links</h2>
Link Target
Anything in this field will be used as the target attribute in the links created for
footnotes. For example, if you’d like to have all of the footnote links open in a
new window you would enter _blank into the Link Target field.
Only the footnote links are affected. The links in the post itself are not touched.
Meta Fields
You can override the Default On setting by including either lf_on or lf_off
meta fields in your post or page. The value for either field doesn’t matter. As
long as it’s not blank then the meta tag will work.
Using lf_on will force the link list to show even if the default is not to show. lf_off
will force the list not to show overriding the default.
Changelog
A fix for a couple of small mistakes
0.1.7
- Added option to allow you to add a target attribute to the footnotes links created.
0.1.6
- Just changing where the plugin lives, no functional changes. No need to update.
0.1.5
- Fix: Duplicate links are only shown once
- Fix: Use <li> instead of <ul> to wrap links
0.1
- First release
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Link Footnotes alternatives
All footnote plugins →
FAQ
Link Footnotes: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 8, 2026
Is Link Footnotes free?
Yes. Link Footnotes is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Link Footnotes safe to use in 2026?
Link Footnotes shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 1/5 and was last updated 15 years ago, and scores 18/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Link Footnotes?
Link Footnotes is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 2,805 times since it launched in May 2011. It was downloaded 50 times in the last 30 days.
Does Link Footnotes work with WordPress 7.1?
Link Footnotes is officially tested up to WordPress 3.3.2, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Link Footnotes last updated?
The latest version, 0.1.7, was released on March 30, 2012 (15 years ago).
Who makes Link Footnotes?
Link Footnotes is developed and maintained by Aelora.
What are the best alternatives to Link Footnotes?
The most popular alternatives to Link Footnotes are Blank Footnotes (300+ installs), Inline Context (30+ installs) and Better Footnotes (20+ installs).
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