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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-12T06:56:33+00:00

My Django site is an ecommerce store. Relatively nontechnical copy editors will be logging

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My Django site is an ecommerce store. Relatively nontechnical copy editors will be logging into the Django admin interface and writing the copy for each of the product pages. They have told me that they want to be able to create links in this copy to other pages on the site. For example, if a product references another product in its description, they want to link between the pages.

I see a couple of possible options:

  1. They simply hardcode the urls in <a> tags in the copy. I’ve set up ckeditor for the admin textareas so this would be the simplest solution, but if the url structure of the site ever changed, (say we changed them for SEO purposes) all the links would break.

  2. Introduce some sort of wiki syntax where they surround the text that they want the links to be in square brackets. Something like:

    Widget A works really well with [[Widget B]]. It is good.

would produce:

Widget A works really well with <a href="/detail/widget-b/">Widget B</a>.  It is good.

Then you have the problem of what happens if the product’s name changes?

Has anyone dealt with this problem before and come up with a solution that is flexible enough to allow changing links/names/etc?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I deal with this issue frequently. Ultimately, you have to be very persuasive to convince me to allow embedding links directly into the copy–especially with an e-commerce website.

    • What if the product name changes or is re-branded?
    • What if the product is discontinued… you don’t want 404 errors from your internal links.
    • Do you really want to lead people away from your “add to cart” call to action that high up on the page?
    • Do they know your SEO strategy? Are they going to dilute your links? What verbiage will they use? Will they ensure the link is valid?

    When I am asked to give copy/product development team the ability to add links I always start with a No. Ask them what they need them for, explain the problems that can arise (eg. extra cost in maintaining valid links, conversion rate considerations, SEO considerations), and offer alternative solutions.

    For example, I usually offer the ability to allow them to associate products with products as “Associated Products”, “Related Products”, “Accessories”, “More Information” etc. You can have these in tabs or lists at the bottom of the product page. These would be in models and thus you have control over not displaying discontinued products, the link names are the product names (which you have SEO control over), etc. Determine if they are going for cross-selling, up-selling, or providing the end user with more information.

    As a last resort I have also used a custom code parser which is again based on the target object and not a hard-coded link. For example, let’s say you give them the ability to do:

    Widget A works really well with [product=123].

    A custom template tag, parser in your model/view can replace that with a link to the the Product with id=123 (or use slug) based on get_absolute_url(). If the product is discontinued, the name can still show but no link. This only works if you have a policy of never deleting records. Even then, you may have to have some error handling for when they enter an invalid product ID or somebody does delete that product. That will happen.

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