Managing Links Part 1: Activating the Functionality

WebCenter Content comes with an excellent tool for managing links - auspiciously known as the Link Manager. But I've rarely seen clients use it to its full potential. In this first post I'll talk about how to activate its functionality.

For those that don't know, the LinkManager8 component has been provided as standard since the Stellent days. What the component does is read all hyperlinks from content items and store them in a lookup table which can be searched by users. It also checks the validity of links to content items and prevents users from deleting content that will break these links. Links are read from Word documents, Excel, emails, HTML, XML, even WMV videos... pretty much anything that can store a hyperlink will be parsed. The links are read during checkin (or reindex) and displayed on the "Content Information" page of each content item. All links can be tracked from the "Managed Links Search" page found under the "Content Management" menu.

Link Manager will prevent users from deleting content items that are linked to from other content items. It even emails users when linked content is due to expire. This is a safeguard to prevent broken links in your system. The deletion can be toggled to provide an "Are you sure?" prompt using this config setting:
AllowForceDelete=true

In the event that a link is invalid, Link Manager automatically identifies the link and displays it in bold. The "Managed Links Search" page also includes a search for invalid links. The search can also be broken down into types of links or even search for links to or links from specific items. This is an excellent way for admins to identify broken links in the system.

What many admins don't realise is that the Link Manager can also recognise and parse SiteStudio link formats. The power of this is that it can recognise the website, section and content item that a link points to, making it an invaluable tool for website administrators. But this functionality needs to be activated by a config setting.
HasSiteStudio=true

Once this is active (after a collection rebuild) the link management tool can be used to track the health of links on your websites. It also recognises hard-coded links, links inside fragments, layouts and other SiteStudio objects. It can be used to hunt down invalid links, count references to an item, or reflect on the types of links contributors are creating. But it doesn't have a search for external URLs. In the next post I'll reveal the secret to searching for external URLs as well as some other tweaks.