Pretty Links 2.0 is Here!
It's been a long time coming, but we're proud to announce that Pretty Links 2.0 is now here!
We have completely refactored the code base to ensure that the plugin will be easier to both maintain and extend as WordPress continues to evolve.
Along the way we've completed a major cleanup to the interface, improved performance of the plugin/links, added a bunch of new (awesome) features, and fixed countless bugs. We're so thrilled about the changes, and we hope you will be too!
So what's new?
Great question! With literally thousands of lines of code moved, deleted and/or optimized — there's literally too many changes to list here. So we'll cut to the chase and highlight the one's you're gonna want to know about.
NEW WYSIWYG INSERT LINK POP-UP
Starting with what likely is the best new feature of 2.0 — you can now click the star button when editing a post or page on your website to reveal this Insert Pretty Links pop-up dialogue. Here you can create a brand-new pretty link or search for an existing one. With a few simple clicks, your Pretty Links will be embedded in your content. Finally no more switching between windows and copying/pasting just to insert a link into the content!
BASE SLUG PREFIX
Create links like https://yoursite.com/go/xyz! This allows you to add a default base slug that should be used for all newly created Pretty Links, it does not affect existing links. We recommend using something short like “go” or “out” to help keep your links short (and pretty). This new feature has a lot of potential uses such as omitting your pretty links from caching plugins/hosts to ensure that tracking and reporting isn't affected. It can also be used to limit search engines from indexing your links by adding short lines to your robots.txt files.
CUSTOM POST TYPE SUPPORT
You can now automatically create Pretty Links for and display the social sharing buttons on selected Custom Post Types just like you could before with Posts and Pages.
AFFILIATE LINK DISCLOSURES
This is part of our Keyword replacements. With the FTC getting more serious about cracking down on proper affiliate link disclosures we thought it might be cool to add a feature where your Pretty Links'd Keywords are automatically disclosed for you. When enabled it will show a small text next to your replaced Keyword links so the user will know that link is an affiliate link. Further, you can even show a link to your full affiliate link disclosure statement at the top and/or bottom of each post on your site.
GEOGRAPHICAL (GEO) REDIRECTS
You can define an unlimited number of geo-based redirects. This means you can send users to different target URL's based on their location. We're excited to see the various ways you all come up with to use this new feature!
TECHNOLOGY REDIRECTS
You can now also choose to redirect to different target URL's based on the user's device info. Such as their device type, Operating System, and even their browser!
TIME BASED REDIRECTS
Redirect to different target URL's based on the current date and time. You can now set time intervals and specify which target URL the user will be redirected to based on the current date and time. Set as many time periods as you want!
LINK EXPIRATIONS
We had a lot of requests for this, and it's finally here. We hope you use it and appreciate it. Your Pretty Links can now be set to expire after a certain time, or after a certain number of unique clicks. Maybe you want to run a promotion for only the first X people who subscribe, or for folks who subscribe before a certain time get a free T-shirt etc. Best of all, after the link expires, you have the option to redirect them somewhere else instead.
MORE ROTATIONS
You're no longer limited to just five rotation URL's. Now you can add up to 20 rotating URL's per Pretty Links.
NEW AND PRETTIER SOCIAL SHARING BUTTONS
The social sharing buttons have been completely replaced with some new modern-looking sharing buttons.
LARGER QR CODES
Pretty Links already supported QR codes, but we've increased the generated size of the codes so you can use them in your print media and campaigns.
AUTO URL REPLACEMENT BLACKLIST
In addition to some serious performance improvements with the Automatic URL Replacement feature, we've also added a domain blacklist feature as well. This means you can now omit certain domains from ever being automatically replaced. Perhaps you only want to automatically replace external (outgoing) links with pretty links, and leave your internal links alone. Now that is possible with this new domain blacklist feature.
AUTO TRIM CLICKS
Many of you have been very successful, and with that success comes more traffic. We now have an option which will automatically trim (permanently delete) clicks which are older than 90 days. This will keep the clicks database table fresh and prevent it from becoming so bloated that it affects site performance and other queries etc. These hits are lost forever once deleted, though we highly recommend using this new feature, please be aware that once they're deleted – they're gone forever unless you have some kind of incremental database backup solution in place.
CUSTOM HEAD SCRIPTS
You can now define custom scripts which should be used in the HTML <head> section on every supported redirect type. You can also define scripts which should only be used on individual links as well. This could be useful for tracking scripts like Facebook retargeting, analytics etc. This feature works on all redirect types except for server side (30x) redirect types.
OTHER CHANGES
- Cleaner, more modern interface
- Serious performance improvements and options
- We've extended some of the data that can be imported/exported – with more to come in a future release
- Complete refactor of the core code
- New license key system (no more entering your username/password to activate the plugin)
- Lite and Pro options have been merged into one page
- Tools have been better separated out into their own page
- Hundreds of other small changes and bug fixes too numerous to list
- Auto twitter posting has been removed, better auto-social posting options are available such as Buffer and Hootsuite
- Tweet badge has been removed