You can display web links in two different ways.
- By adding them as IP links inside articles, and these are standalone links, maybe to external websites.
- By creating lists of web links using the Web Links component and displaying that entire list on one page.
The choice between using the dedicated Web Links component and inserting standalone links within articles depends entirely on whether you view your links as "data" or "content."
The Core Difference
Standalone Web Links: These are simple hyperlinks typed directly into an article's body text using the editor. They are static and decentralised; if the destination URL changes, you must manually find and edit every article where that link appears. They are best for one-off references within a specific narrative.
Web Links Component: This is a centralised management system such that It treats links as individual entities with their own settings. By using the component, you can update a URL once in the backend, and every instance of that link across your site—whether in menus or modules or pages—updates automatically. It is designed for curated links, resource lists and so on.
We use the Web Links Manager to create, edit and remove weblinks to web sites which will then be displayed as lists of links on your web site. They are organised into categories or groups so that you can decide to show links from a particular category on a particular page.
Weblink Categories
Categories are used to group together similar links and this applies to web links so that we can then show them on the website, all grouped together.
Create new Web Categories
To create new categories for your web links you use the Components → Weblinks → Categories option from the Control Panel. The resulting form that you will fill in is very simple. You only need to give the category a title and then save and close the category. You can use any name that you like for your Category! Once you have created your Category, click Save & Close.