About this plugin
Simple Link Embed lets editors create link cards from external URLs or internal posts in the block editor. Paste a URL or search for a post, and the plugin fetches metadata such as the title, description, image, and site name automatically.
When an editor inserts or refreshes a card, the plugin requests the selected URL from the server side to fetch metadata. Preview images and site favicons are still loaded from the linked site when available.
Features:
- WordPress Block (Gutenberg) Support – Fully compatible with modern block editor
- External and Internal Links – Paste an external URL or search for an internal post from the editor
- Automatic Metadata Fetching – Retrieves OGP and fallback metadata from the selected page
- Card Display Controls – Control image position, description, site name, and link target behavior
- Site Favicon with Fallback – Uses the linked site’s favicon when available and falls back to a bundled icon
- YouTube and X Support – Includes service-specific metadata handling and fallbacks
- Optional GA4 Click Tracking – Sends click events only when explicitly enabled
External Services
This plugin uses the following external services:
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Linked page metadata fetch
- Service URL: The exact URL entered by the editor
- Purpose: Retrieve page metadata such as title, description, image, canonical URL, site name, and favicon to build the link card.
- Data sent: The selected URL is requested from the site server when an editor inserts or refreshes a card. The remote server may receive the site server IP address and user agent.
- Terms of Service / Privacy Policy: Depend on the linked destination website selected by the editor.
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Linked page preview image and favicon
- Service URL: The og:image URL and favicon URL provided by the linked destination website
- Purpose: Display the linked page’s preview image and site icon in the card.
- Data sent: Site visitors’ browsers request these image URLs when viewing a page that contains the card.
- Terms of Service / Privacy Policy: Depend on the linked destination website selected by the editor.
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YouTube oEmbed API
- Service URL: https://www.youtube.com/oembed
- Purpose: Retrieve metadata for YouTube URLs (title, author, thumbnail).
- Data sent: The selected YouTube URL.
- Terms of Service: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms
- Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
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YouTube thumbnail image service
- Service URL: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/{video_id}/hqdefault.jpg
- Purpose: Fallback thumbnail retrieval for YouTube video cards.
- Data sent: Video ID extracted from the selected YouTube URL.
- Terms of Service: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms
- Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
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Google Analytics 4 (optional)
- Service URL: https://www.google-analytics.com/
- Purpose: Send link card click events when tracking is enabled in plugin settings.
- Data sent: link_url, card_title, link_domain, page_title, page_url, and the configured GA4 measurement ID.
- When sent: Only when the site owner enables tracking in this plugin and a GA4 gtag.js setup already exists on the site.
- Terms of Service: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/
- Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy