External URL for Post Title Permalink

If I understand you correctly…

You can either use the plugin “Page Links To” which will let you specify a custom permalink.

OR

Under custom fields
key: external-link
value: whateverthelinkis.com

Then, in your template

<?php
$meta = get_post_custom();
if($meta['external-link'][0]) {
 $permalink = $meta['external-link'][0];
} else {
 $permalink = get_permalink();
}
?>

Instead of calling the_permalink() just echo($permalink);

ETA
Theoretically, there is a filter for “the_permalink”. In which case, you could try adding this to your functions file (still specifying the permalink in the custom values section).

add_filter('the_permalink', 'getExternalPermalink');
function getExternalPermalink($permalink) {
 global $post;
 $meta = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'external-link', true);
 if($meta['external-link']) {
  return $meta['external-link'];
 }
 return $permalink;
}

Thank you so very much. Will give this a go!

I guess I need some hand-holding with this:

The PageLinksTo plugin is 100% brilliant, but cannot be integrated into Gravity Forms, so I have had to go the manual route.

That said, I’ve tried your instructions, but I am obviously missing something.

The posts have permalinks that are only taking the first letter of the custom field value, so instead of taking me to https://www.link.com, they direct me to cinnamonquill.com/testblog/w

(See ex at: https://thecinnamonquill.com/testblog/)

In order to get to this point, I did the following:

Custom field created.

Code added to loop.php + functions.php.

Though I don’t fully understand:
‘Instead of calling the_permalink() just echo($permalink);’

So my loop.php looks like this: https://pastebin.com/SPKpPgT3

My functions.php: https://pastebin.com/t3hVnzKh

Sorry for the trouble + thanks for the insight!