Linktrade Monitor: Backlink Tracker for Link Exchanges

1.4.1

• Fixed: a link to any page of your site counted as “points to a different page” when the target you entered was your home page. A target without a path now means the whole site, as it did before 1.4.0.
• New: the Import / Export tab says where your data is stored and what the plugin sends out.
• Changed: the readme now explains where your data is stored and which requests the plugin makes.

1.4.0

• New: links are checked every week instead of once a month, in small portions that continue until every link is done. Before, one run checked at most 50 links and stopped.
• New: one email after each check that lists what changed (link removed, nofollow, sponsored, noindex, your own link missing, link back). Optional weekly summary when nothing changed.
• New: check history and change log per link, with “since” dates in the list.
• New: “Needs your attention” on the dashboard, grouped by what to do.
• New: “Check now” per link. Changing an address triggers a new check.
• New: “Find my link to this partner” searches your posts and pages for the reciprocal link.
• New: message to the partner, ready to copy.
• New: Site Health entry and dashboard box that show whether the automatic check is scheduled.
• New: agreed anchor text and “followed link agreed” per link, with a notice when the page differs.
• New: search of the whole site for outgoing links, to add partners with two clicks.
• New: record for a complaint in the history window.
• New: counter in the admin menu and a widget on the WordPress dashboard.
• New: the list has pages, sortable columns, a search that covers all links, and bulk check and delete.
• New: WP-CLI commands wp linktrade check and wp linktrade status.
• New: partner contact addresses are included in the WordPress personal data export and erasure tools.
• Improved: colours meet the WCAG AA contrast of 4.5:1, keyboard focus is always visible.
• New: detects rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”, robots “none” and “nofollow”, the googlebot meta tag.
• Improved: the target page is compared exactly, “/page” no longer matches “/page-2”.
• Improved: bot protection is recognised by its technical markers, not by ordinary wording in the text.
• Improved: pages that cannot be read are shown as “Not verifiable” with a date, instead of looking freshly checked.
• Improved: CSV import reads semicolon-separated files, files with a byte order mark and notes with line breaks, and names the line of every problem. Imported links are checked in the background.
• Improved: the plugin follows the language of the site. The edit window is translated.
• Fixed: an expiry reminder was marked as sent before the email went out, and was never sent again after the end date had been changed.
• Fixed: tables no longer push the page sideways on small screens.
• Changed: emoji icons replaced by WordPress icons, upgrade box on the dashboard reduced to one line.

1.3.4

• Fixed: deleting this plugin while Linktrade Monitor Pro is installed no longer
  removes the shared link tables and settings. Your links stay, whichever of the
  two plugins you remove.
• Fixed: activating this plugin while Pro is active could stop the site with a
  fatal error. The free plugin now steps aside and shows a notice.
• Fixed: a partner page that had never been read, or an exchange without a
  reciprocal link on record, was scored as “link removed”. Such exchanges are
  now shown as “Not rated yet”. Stored scores are recalculated once on update.
• Fixed: the Fairness tab counter left out the 0 percent case.
• Fixed: server errors (HTTP 5xx), timeouts and empty responses were still
  written as “offline”. They now keep the last readable result.
• Fixed: saving reported success even when required fields were missing or the
  database refused the entry. Fields are now validated on the server.
• Security: link checks only request http and https addresses and refuse
  private and loopback addresses. CSV export cells that start with a formula
  character are neutralised.
• Changed: the readme no longer lists unlimited links and German as Pro
  features. Both have always been part of the free plugin.

1.3.3

• Fixed: the Fairness Score was inverted. When a partner had removed their link
  while your link to them was still online, the score showed 100 percent instead
  of 0, so the very case the plugin exists to catch was sorted to the bottom of
  the list and stayed out of sight. The score now reads 0 when the partner
  dropped you, 25 when you dropped them, 50 when both links are gone, and 60 or
  70 for the nofollow and noindex cases.
• Fixed: a link to a look-alike domain was counted as your backlink, because the
  match was a plain substring, so “notexample.org” matched the target
  “example.org”. The check now compares the host exactly.
• Added: noindex is now detected in the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header as well, not
  only in the meta robots tag.
• Added: bot-protection pages (Cloudflare and similar) that answer with HTTP 200
  are recognised and no longer counted as a healthy or a removed link.
• Improved: a link that moved to another path on the same domain is reported as a
  warning with the URL that is actually linked, instead of a false “removed”.
• Security: the two internal AJAX read endpoints now require the manage_options
  capability, like every other endpoint.

1.3.2

• Fixed: a page that could not be read at all was reported as “offline”, which
  reads as “your link was removed”. Blocked pages (HTTP 401, 403, 429), server
  errors, transport errors and empty responses all ended up in that bucket, so
  a partner site behind a rate limit or a CDN produced a false alarm every time
  it was checked. Rate limits on WordPress.com and several CDNs answer with 403,
  which made this common.
  An unreadable page is not a statement about the link: the plugin now reports
  a warning asking you to verify by hand, keeps every finding from the last
  readable check, and records only the HTTP code and the timestamp.
• Fixed: an unreadable check also overwrote the nofollow, noindex, sponsored,
  redirect and anchor fields with empty defaults, and the fairness score was
  calculated from those empty values.
• Added: one retry for transport errors, 401, 403, 429 and 5xx before anything
  is written, so a single hiccup never looks like a removed link.

1.3.1

• New: Compact 2-column form layout, reduces scrolling by 60%
• New: Side-by-side Incoming/Outgoing link sections with visual indicators
• New: 3-column partner info row for better space usage
• Improved: Visual arrows (← / →) show link direction clearly
• Improved: Color-coded columns (green for incoming, blue for outgoing)
• Improved: Responsive layout adapts to tablet and mobile screens