Simple Short Links

As of WordPress 3.0, most of this plugin’s original features have been incorporated into WordPress itself. WordPress adds shortlinks to most pages by default. This plugin simply adds a settings page where you can easily make some minor adjustments.

WordPress shortlinks are useful for micro-blogging, by using your own domain instead of a 3rd-party short URL service.

The URLs are automatically added to the HTTP and HTML headers of each post, page, attachment, and category.

A template tag enables you to display a human-readable link in addition to the automatically generated headers. Use of human-readable links is highly encouraged, because Google is known to favor them and rank them higher than some longer URLs. This has the effect of boosting the rank of URLs that were deemed “too long” by Google’s standards. Also, in many mobile web browsers, the easiest way for a visitor to find a short link is by seeing it somewhere on the page.

The template tag idea can be extended further with CSS code for print media, which could ensure that each article’s short link URL is printed along with the article. This will make it much easier for the user to return to the article after reading a hard copy.

Theme

Current documentation should be found at Function Reference/the shortlink

Here is a basic reference for the template functions provided by Simple Short Links. WordPress 3.0+ users, see also wp-includes/link-template.php for more details about the_shortlink().

/**
 * Template Tag for Displaying the Short Link
 *
 * Must be called from inside "The Loop"
 *
 * Call like <?php the_shortlink(__('Shortlinkage FTW')); ?>
 *
 * @since 1.1
 * @param string $text Optional The link text or HTML to be displayed.  Defaults to 'This is the short link.'
 * @param string $title Optional The tooltip for the link.  Must be sanitized.  Defaults to the sanitized post title.
 */
function the_shortlink($text = '', $title = '');

A second, similar tag is now available in case you need to display a self-referring short link on a category page.

/**
 * Template Tag for Displaying the Short Link for a Category
 *
 * Should be called from outside "The Loop"
 *
 * Call like <? the_single_shortlink(__('Shortlinkage FTW')); ?>
 *
 * @since 1.3
 * @param string $text Optional The link text or HTML to be displayed.  Defaults to 'This is the short link.'
 * @param string $title Optional The tooltip for the link.  Must be sanitized.  Defaults to the sanitized category name.
 */
function the_single_shortlink($text = '', $title = '');

The CSS Printing Trick

Try adding something like this to your theme’s CSS file to make the URL for the short link appear when printed.

@media print {
 .shortlink a:link:after {
    content: " " attr(href);
 }
}

The CSS example assumes the_shortlink() is used inside of a DIV or P element with a class attribute called “shortlink”.

1. Upload the simple-shortlinks directory to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

The plugin is fully functional at activation. A settings page is included for advanced configuration.

Settings will be preserved during deactivation. An “uninstall” script is included, which will automatically delete the settings data if you click the Delete on the Plugins screen.

Can I see a sample of your short url for wordpress?

Yes. You can see this plugin live on my personal blog. For example:

miqrogroove.com?p=1122

That short link will forward to a specific post permalink from a January 2013 article. Here is an example of a category short link:

miqrogroove.com?cat=12

This plugin is also compatible with qTranslate, so you can see paths like /zh/?p=4517 when both plugins are installed.

http://blogyul.miqrogroove.com/zh/?p=4517

Notice how much longer the permalinks may become when the short links are clicked!

Is it only the page or the post url that it shortens?

Short Links are extra URLs that get forwarded to the normal URLs. The existing URLs stay the same.

This does work for:

• Posts
• Pages
• Attachments
• Categories

This particular plugin does not make short links for:

• Tags
• Image files
• Other websites

Does it take the header as the description?

Activating this plugin adds two invisible links to each post. That part of the protocol does not involve descriptions.

The template tag, when added to your theme, does use a normal hyperlink with a title description.
The template tag is customizable.

How do I use the template tag?

You can add something as simple as this inside the single post template and/or the post loop:

<?php the_shortlink('Short Link'); ?>