Beginner’s Guide: Pretty Links on WordPress (Setup, Slugs, Tracking)

A quick, clean walkthrough to create branded affiliate redirects like /go/product—plus click tracking and best practices.

Pretty Links helps you turn long, messy URLs into clean, trackable links such as /go/keychron-k2. Here’s how to set it up the right way.

Step 1 — Install & basic settings

  1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search “Pretty Links”, install & activate.
  2. Open Pretty Links → Options. Confirm the base slug is /go/.
  3. Optional: enable click tracking and enable nofollow/sponsored tags by default.

Step 2 — Create your first redirect

  1. Pretty Links → Add New.
  2. Redirection: 307 (Temporary) is fine for affiliate links.
  3. Target URL: paste the full affiliate URL.
  4. Pretty Link: use a pattern like /go/brand-model.

Step 3 — Use in posts

In your content, link to the Pretty Link instead of the long affiliate URL. Example: /go/keychron-k2.

Best practices

  • Keep slugs readable (/go/mx-master-3s).
  • Tag links as nofollow & sponsored.
  • Don’t include prices unless you update them automatically.

What’s next

As you publish more reviews and roundups, maintain a central list of your Pretty Links for quick reuse.

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