Panth Crosslinks — Automatic Internal Linking for Magento 2 (Hyva + Luma)

Automatic internal linking for Magento 2. Pick a keyword, pick a destination (a URL, a product by SKU, or a category by ID), and the module injects a safe anchor tag into every matching product, category, and CMS description at render time. Respects excluded tags (headings, buttons, existing anchors), per-page and per-keyword limits, optional nofollow, optional scheduled activation windows, and defends against javascript: / data: / vbscript: URL schemes.

Internal linking is one of the most durable on-site SEO signals a store can control, but building it by hand means editing every description whenever a new category launches. Panth Crosslinks replaces that manual work with a single admin grid: declare rules once, they apply everywhere.

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Need Custom Magento 2 Development?

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Panth Infotech Agency

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Table of Contents

• Preview
• Features
• How It Works
• Compatibility
• Installation
• Configuration
• Managing Crosslink Rules
• Security
• Troubleshooting
• Support

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Preview

Live walkthrough

End-to-end admin flow — configure the module, add a keyword rule, save, and see the crosslink appear on the storefront. Click to play.

Admin

Global configuration — toggle the module, cap links per page, set excluded tags, and enable time-based activation.

Rules grid — list every crosslink rule with keyword, reference type, target URL, placement toggles, store scope, schedule, and priority. Supports filters, mass actions, and inline store column resolution (All Store Views / Main Website → Default Store View).

Edit form — Category reference (all stores) — link the keyword "bag" to Category by ID 4. Max Replacements = 2, Priority = 100, applies to product + category + CMS pages.

Edit form — Scheduled Custom URL — Flash Sale rule active only between 01 Jan 2027 → 31 Dec 2027. Respects the store-level Time-Based Activation toggle.

Storefront — Hyvä

Product description (Affirm Water Bottle) — backpack → Endeavor Daytrip Backpack SKU, bag → Bags category. Injected inline with the panth-crosslink class.

Product description (Zing Jump Rope) — fitness → Fitness Equipment category.

Category description (Bags) — backpack, training, gear, bag, watch rendered in the category intro.

CMS page (/crosslink-test) — links for every seeded keyword in a single paragraph, capped by max_links_per_page.

Storefront — Luma

Product description (Affirm Water Bottle) — same rules render identically on Luma's default template.

Product description (Zing Jump Rope) — fitness → Fitness Equipment category.

Category description (Bags) — backpack, training, gear, bag, watch rendered on the category intro.

CMS page (/crosslink-test) — rules rendered via the CMS FilterProvider plugin on both block and page filters.

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Features

Feature	Description
Keyword-to-anchor replacement	Case-insensitive, whole-word match. Inject into product descriptions, short descriptions, category descriptions, CMS pages, and CMS blocks.
Three reference types	url (direct URL), product_sku (resolved via url_rewrite), category_id (resolved via url_rewrite). SKU and category references are looked up once per request and cached.
Excluded tags	Keywords inside <h1>–<h6>, <a>, <button>, <script>, and <style> are never touched. Configurable.
Per-keyword max_replacements	Cap how many times each rule fires across a single rendered page.
Per-page max_links_per_page	Global ceiling to avoid over-optimisation.
Time-based activation	Optional active_from / active_to gating per rule when the store-level toggle is enabled.
Store-scoped	store_id = 0 rules apply everywhere; non-zero rules are scoped to a specific store view.
Priority	Higher-priority rules are processed first, so important keywords win the link budget.
Nofollow	Per-rule toggle to add rel="nofollow" to the rendered anchor.
URL Title	Optional title attribute on the rendered anchor.
Mass actions	Enable, disable, or delete many rules at once from the admin grid.
Safe rendering	Dangerous URL schemes (javascript:, data:, vbscript:, file:) are rejected at render time even if the row somehow got into the database.

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How It Works

Six small pieces cooperate:

1. Admin grid at panth_crosslinks/crosslink/index — standard Magento 2 UI component listing backed by the panth_seo_crosslink table.
2. Admin form at panth_crosslinks/crosslink/edit/id/<ID> — reference-type switcher hides/shows the URL vs Reference-Value input depending on the selection.
3. ReplacementService — HTML-aware engine. Splits the incoming markup into text segments, tag segments, and excluded-tag blocks so keywords inside headings, anchors, buttons, scripts, and styles are never touched.
4. CatalogOutputPlugin — after-plugin on Magento\Catalog\Helper\Output::productAttribute/categoryAttribute — fires on description and short_description (product) and description (category).
5. CmsFilterPlugin + CrosslinkFilterDecorator — wraps the CMS template filter returned by FilterProvider so filter() runs the replacement engine after Magento has processed widgets and directives.
6. Master switch + config — admin toggles live at panth_crosslinks/general/* and are read per-store through a thin Helper\Config façade.

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Compatibility

Requirement	Supported
Magento Open Source	2.4.4, 2.4.5, 2.4.6, 2.4.7, 2.4.8
Adobe Commerce	2.4.4 — 2.4.8
PHP	8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4
Hyva Theme	1.0+ (fully compatible)
Luma Theme	Native support
Panth Core	^1.0 (installed automatically)

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Installation

composer require mage2kishan/module-crosslinks
bin/magento module:enable Panth_Core Panth_Crosslinks
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:di:compile
bin/magento cache:flush

Verify

bin/magento module:status Panth_Crosslinks
# Module is enabled

Visit Admin → Panth Infotech → Crosslinks to see the empty grid.

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Configuration

Navigate to Stores → Configuration → Panth Infotech → Crosslinks, or click Panth Infotech → Crosslinks Configuration in the admin sidebar.

Setting	Default	What it controls
Enable Auto Cross-Links	Yes	Master switch. If No, no rules are injected regardless of grid state.
Max Links per Page	5	Global ceiling on the total number of anchor tags injected into any single rendered page.
Excluded Tags	h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,a,button,script,style	Comma-separated list of HTML tags whose contents (including nested content) are never rewritten.
Enable Time-Based Activation	No	When Yes, each rule's Active From and Active To timestamps gate whether the rule fires. When No, those fields are ignored.

Each setting is resolved at store-view scope, so you can have different link budgets and excluded tags per store.

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Managing Crosslink Rules

Open Admin → Panth Infotech → Crosslinks to reach the grid.

Fields

Field	Description
Keyword	Case-insensitive phrase the engine searches for. Whole-word boundaries only.
Reference Type	Custom URL — use the URL field directly. Product by SKU — look up the product's storefront path. Category by ID — look up the category's storefront path.
URL	Used only when Reference Type = Custom URL. Accepts relative paths (/category/shoes.html) or absolute URLs.
Reference Value	Used for SKU or category ID. Stored as a string for SKU, parsed as int for category IDs.
URL Title	Optional title attribute on the rendered anchor.
Store View	0 applies to all stores; any non-zero value restricts the rule to that store view.
Active	Per-row enable/disable.
Active From / Active To	Only evaluated when the store-level time-activation flag is enabled.
Apply to Product / Category / CMS	Three independent checkboxes. Rules fire only in surfaces that are checked.
Max Replacements	Per-rule cap. After N hits across the current page, the rule stops matching.
Nofollow	Adds rel="nofollow" to the rendered anchor.
Priority	Higher values are processed first when the per-page link budget is tight.

Mass actions

Select rows and choose Enable, Disable, or Delete from the grid mass-action menu.

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Security

• Admin controllers extend Magento\Backend\App\Action. Every CRUD path declares its own ADMIN_RESOURCE constant and ACL is enforced via _isAllowed().
• Save and MassDelete / MassStatus implement HttpPostActionInterface — GET requests are rejected. Form-key validation runs on every POST.
• All DB writes use prepared parameters ($adapter->update($table, $row, ['id = ?' => $id])) — no SQL concatenation.
• The anchor builder rejects dangerous URL schemes (javascript:, data:, vbscript:, file:) at render time and runs every user-supplied field (URL, title, matched text) through htmlspecialchars(ENT_QUOTES | ENT_HTML5).
• The Save controller validates that the keyword does not contain < or > to prevent admin users from stashing HTML into the pattern column.

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Troubleshooting

No links appearing on the frontend

1. Flush caches: bin/magento cache:flush.
2. Confirm Enable Auto Cross-Links is Yes at the store-view scope you are browsing.
3. Confirm the rule's Active flag is Yes and its Apply to Product / Category / CMS checkbox matches the surface you are testing.
4. If using Time-Based Activation, check Active From / Active To cover now.

A keyword is being linked inside a heading

The headings tag list (h1–h6) is in Excluded Tags by default. If you removed it or misspelled a tag name, add it back.

Too many links on one page

Lower Max Links per Page (config) or lower a rule's Max Replacements.

A product SKU or category ID resolves to an empty link

Confirm the URL rewrite exists — select request_path from url_rewrite where entity_type='product' and entity_id=<ID> and store_id in (0, <STORE>). If no row exists, the rule's matched text is rendered as plain text (no broken anchor).

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Support

• Agency: Panth Infotech on Upwork
• Direct: kishansavaliya.com — Get a free quote