Help needed for import of links

Excel is really not good at managing CSV files. LibreOffice Calc, which is free and Open Source does much better at editing these files and saving them correctly.

I usually start from the file importtemplate.csv, which is included with the plugin code, when I look to import links. It should look just like your exported links, but there’s a slight chance that there might be some differences between the two.

If you are still having problems importing links, you can always send me a copy of a test import file by e-mail to ylefebvre at gmail dot com.

Let me know if this helps and please consider donating to support this plugin’s development.

Hi Yannick,
Thank you for your reply. The end of year activities prevented me from responding sooner. I replied to your gmail address on 5 January from dirk at dike dot be. I did not get a reply so I wonder if you got the mail.

I switched to LibreOffice for saving the csv-files. On the basis of my export I used the file import8.csv (actually there first was an import7.csv with similar results) to import the links. I had links for 3 categories. They all imported well but none were assigned to a category. And the categories had been created with exactly the same names. In the import7 file I did not include anything in the link target field. In the import8 file I included _blank and that worked fine. But also with the import from the import8 file no categories were assigned. See enclosed printscreen in the mail.

However I learned that I could bulk assign categories with quick edit. That helps a little bit but is doesn’t help me prepare for a big import. And the quick edit doesn’t allow a quick edit of such aspects as the Link Target.

I have been using a lot a site of a string of sites that offer links pages in Holland and Belgium with domain names like linkoverzicht.be. I have about 11 of them like: https://informatie.linkoverzicht.be/ and https://ict-bedrijven.linkoverzicht.be/.
I would love to group all of them on my domain name linkregister.be. If necessary I can go for subdomain names. But if with your plugin it is possible to create all my theme pages under one top page linkregister.be that would be great. So far I have no commercial objective. I use those linkoverzicht.be pages to store all my useful links for my own use and memory and once in a while I forward the link to one of my linkoverzicht.be pages to a friend or an internet contact.

Is it possible with your plugin to create several links theme pages under one domain name?

So I hope you can help me resolving the import problem with the categories. And after that if you could tell me whether it is possible to have all my link theme pages on one linkregister.be domain and how to arrange that I would be very happy. I have not invested in figuring how I can format all the links.

And if it all works I will certainly donate.

I look forward to your reply.
And all the best for a great and safe 2021.

Dirk Janssens
2390 Westmalle, Belgium

Thanks for reaching out here. Your reply had landed in my spam folder for some reason. Just noticed that you like in Westmalle. While I’ve never been to that particular city, I really enjoy the Westmalle dubbel and triple. I brought back some bottles when I was last in Belgium visiting Aalst.

Now, for your CSV issue, you just need to supply the slug in addition for the category in addition to the category name. I just added cms-detection, contact-forms and elementor as the slugs and everything imported with category names.

This is what is shown in the import template. Please give it a try and let me know if categories import correctly after making this change. Thanks for your eventual support if it does. Cheers!

Here’s the modified CSV file I used to test: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ylefebvre/6eb2dae890aba067fa8be1d26e39a38b/raw/b1a02924574e4898d1a63e71fb4f5cc4e278df7f/import8.csv