Links menu missing from WP-Admin menu on most of my sites
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I just noticed this tonight. Many of the sites I created in this account during my early years with WP.com (~2008-2011 or so) have a Links Menu in the WP-Admin, just as they did when I created them. However, I’ve found dozens of my sites created as early as 2009 in the same account that do not have a Links menu in the WP-Admin menu. A lot of these are test sites that I’ve used while engaged support forums volunteer work.
The Links icon in that menu looks like the link of a chain. When you point at or hover over it, three links are revealed: All Links, Add New, and Link Categories. Since the Links icon is missing on most of my sites in this account, so are the menu items that it holds or hides. That means I can’t reach any of those pages.
The majority of the sites that I’ve checked that are missing the Links icon in the WP-admin menu, appear to have only a default blogroll displayed in the sidebar. So for a while I thought maybe this issue was only affecting sites where I’d never touched the blogroll. However, I found one case where I’d clearly edited the blogroll, yet the Links icon is missing.
I’m the owner of each of the affected sites. In most cases I’m also the lone user. When there is another user, it is another account of mine.
I have no idea how long the Links menus have been missing from my sites. Changing the Dashboard appearance setting at Account Settings has no affect in this regard. Is this a known issue? Have there been any other reports of the Links menu missing on what otherwise seem to be normal sites?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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That means I can’t reach any of those pages.
I should have changed that. While I was writing the above, I discovered that the All Links, Add New, and Link Categories pages could be reached on a site with the Links menu missing by copying the corresponding URLs on a site of mine that has a Links menu displayed, then changing the subdomain appropriately.
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@musicdoc1 correct. That feature was removed from WordPress core years ago. We kept it with a plugin, but long ago stopped putting links widgets on people’s sites.
Because so few people were using it, they had initially removed it from the menu. After we surfaced some feedback on people still needing it, they added it back to the menu for sites that have customized links.
If you aren’t already using the links widget, though, we recommend just making a menu and using the menu widget instead.
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Hi. I’d either been unaware of, or forgotten that change for some reason. Discovered just now that after adding a new link or two on a site where the Links menu was missing from WP-Admin, the creation of new links caused the Links menu to appear in the menu. Not sure if one new link would have been sufficient, it didn’t appear until after I’d added a second new link. I’m going to do some more testing on this soon.
Regarding the Navigation Menu Widget: Yes, thanks. I’ve used that extensively since it came out, or since I became aware of it. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t noticed the missing Links menu on most of my sites. I think the Menu Widget is probably a better option than Links for my purposes in most cases. The main reason that I haven’t switched to that on my main site and some of my other old sites is the prospect of recreating a list of up to hundreds of links in many categories in a menu, one link at a time. I originally used the Links menu for internal as well as external links, so it grew very long on some sites.
I’d asked several years ago about the possibility of quickly transferring the content of the Links menu to a custom menu, but was told it wasn’t possible. Has any thought been put into that by WP devs?
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I’d asked several years ago about the possibility of quickly transferring the content of the Links menu to a custom menu, but was told it wasn’t possible. Has any thought been put into that by WP devs?
Probably not, since links manager is rarely used and those who use it can typically transfer their content to a new menu pretty quickly by hand. If the developers didn’t have other stuff on their plates it might happen, but there are many other cool idea requests open, so they try to go for the ones that would help the most people.
And yes, any change to the default link set will make the link manager appear.
Hoping that helps!
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On one of my old sites that is missing a Links menu in the WP-Admin menu, today I created a link, but a Links menu was not added to the WP-Admin menu. After adding two more links the Links menu still has not appeared.
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Hello there,
To access the links menu, you would need to add: /wp-admin/link-manager.php to the end of your site URL.
I hope this helps.
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Thanks, but have you read this thread? I’ve indicated above that after appending /wp-admin/link-add.php to the URLs of sites that were missing the Links menu, and adding a link or multiple links, then the missing Links menu would appear in the WP-Admin menu. I did this on multiple sites.
Then @supernovia indicated that this result was to be expected, saying:
And yes, any change to the default link set will make the link manager appear.
Her response even suggests that removing a single default link would cause the Links menu to appear. So has WordPress.com now removed the ability to add or restore the missing Links menu, and done so sometime in the past six days?
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Maybe I’m using the wrong terminology. What I’ve been calling the “Links menu,” @supernovia called the “link manager.” I suppose she meant “Links manager,” but we’re talking about the same thing. As I said above,
The Links icon in that menu looks like the link of a chain. When you point at or hover over it, three links are revealed: All Links, Add New, and Link Categories.
That’s what we’re referring to.
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Can you let us know the URL of the site where you’re having this issue so we can take a closer look? Thank you!
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helper-heroponriki,
Hi! It’s a private site, https://harlequin1.wordpress.com/. But I’ve sort of resolved the issue. Today I discovered that there must be at least four items in the Links menu for it to appear in the WP-Admin admin menu. I hadn’t had any links when I added three on April 1st. That wasn’t enough. Today I decided to try adding more, and after adding just one more it worked!
My tests indicate that if there are four or more links, then the Links menu (icon and links) appears in the WP-Admin admin menu, and if you drop back down to three links, then the Links menu disappears again.
On some other sites I’d had immediate success in getting the icon to display by adding a single link, but most of these sites already had several default links.
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