External Links to Footnotes

External Links to Footnotes converts external links in article content into compact numbered references such as [1]. It keeps the original linked words in the article, then displays each external destination in a Footnotes list at the end of the content or at a shortcode location.

The plugin is published by Enok SEO and runs entirely on your WordPress site.

Key features:

• Keeps same-site, relative, and configured always-inline domains unchanged.
• Converts external text links into accessible numbered references.
• Preserves the original anchor text in the article body.
• Deduplicates repeated external URLs by default.
• Removes common tracking parameters from displayed Footnotes URLs by default.
• Supports automatic placement and [enok_extref_resources] placement.
• Supports posts, pages, and selected public post types.
• Supports URL, APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago/Turabian, and IEEE-style display templates.
• Includes accessible marker labels, back links, selected-Footnote highlighting, focus styles, and stable IDs.
• Includes optional citation JSON-LD, disabled by default.
• Includes background indexing and local statistics with no external data transmission.
• Includes layout-level compatibility for popular page builders.

Links remain inline when they are:

• Internal or relative URLs.
• On a domain listed under Internal / Always Inline Domains, including its subdomains.
• Amazon product or affiliate links when that option is enabled.
• Inside code, preformatted text, scripts, styles, known embeds, or plugin-owned Footnotes markup.
• Wrapped around an image.
• Marked with the configured exclude class.
• mailto:, tel:, javascript:, or fragment-only links.

The plugin modifies rendered content only. It does not rewrite post content stored in the database and does not modify destination URLs in the editor.

How to Use

The default configuration processes published posts and automatically appends a Footnotes section after the article content.

To keep a destination inline, add its root domain under Internal / Always Inline Domains. Subdomains are included automatically. You can also add the no-footnote class to an individual link.

To place Footnotes manually, change Append Mode to Shortcode Only and add:

The shortcode renders the collected Footnotes list at that location without appending a duplicate section.

Builder Compatibility

The plugin processes complete content layouts rather than individual builder modules whenever the builder provides a layout-level render hook.

• WordPress Classic Editor and Block Editor: supported through the_content.
• Elementor: supported through its frontend content hook and wrapper-aware placement.
• Beaver Builder: supported through its complete layout content hook.
• Divi: supported through its complete layout render hook.
• Bricks: supported through its frontend content hook.
• WPBakery, Oxygen, and Avada: supported through the core content path and wrapper-aware placement.

Builder diagnostics and a compatibility self-test are available under Footnotes > Stats > Diagnostics.

For safety, HTML parsing fails open when one content value is larger than 2 MiB or contains more than 2,000 links. The original content remains unchanged. Developers can adjust these limits with enok_extref_dom_max_content_bytes and enok_extref_dom_max_anchor_count.

Privacy

External Links to Footnotes processes post content locally. The plugin does not send post content, link data, usage data, or personal information to external servers.

The plugin stores settings, aggregate statistics, per-post indexing metadata, and temporary render-cache entries in the WordPress database. Plugin-owned options, scheduled events, and indexing metadata are removed when the plugin is uninstalled.