features

Pretty Link Adds Robot Filtering and a Bunch of Other Goodies

by Blair Williams · Sep 21, 2009

Over the years, I've learned it can be hard to tell the difference between a Robot and Human … er … well that is, on the Internet. Pretty Link and Pretty Link Pro can now help you unmask those pesky robots clicking your links. There have also been several other features and bug fixes added in the last week that I'd like to update you on and give you a little bit of info about:

Robot Hit Filtering

This one has been a long time coming. You can now go into “Pretty Link” -> “Options” under “Reporting” and select Filter Robots. Robot Filtering will only work for new links — any robot hits that were recorded in a version of Pretty Link before version 1.4.21 won't be able to be filtered. With that said, if you're really wanting your old hits to have the ability to be filtered just comment on this post — if there's a demand, I'll post some code that you can run on your server to do this effectively. Another thing to know about the robot filtering is that it will eliminate the lion's share of bots (like 99% of them) — but there may be a few that slip through the cracks — I'm working on some future enhancements that will close the gap on this — but for now, if you still see 1 or 2 bots in your hit list don't be alarmed.
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Pretty Link Pro Officially Launched

by Blair Williams · Sep 2, 2009

When I put the pre-launch version of Pretty Link Pro (PLP) out on the market at the end of July, I really didn't know what to expect. Well, let's just say the past month has been a wild ride. 🙂 Scores of people downloaded PLP and I released a ton of fixes and new features. Seriously, look at how much has been added to PLP (above and beyond its already impressive feature set) in just the first month:

Automatic Tweeting of scheduled & XML-RPC posts
The Pretty Link Bookmarklet (for creating pretty links outside of your WordPress admin)
Bulk Editing / Bulk Deletion UI enhancements for the Pretty Link Management page
Public Link creation widget and shortcode (for site owners who want to allow their users to create pretty links using the website's url)
The Quick Add Dashboard Widget
Alternate URL configuration (you can use a shorter version of your url)
Short URL auto-discovery for Posts & Pages
Randomized Keyword Replacements when using replacement thresholds
Slug & message customization for automatic post tweeting
URL Aliases for counting tweets that go to your blog post but are different from your pretty link
Many more smaller fixes & refinements …

Roadmap

Pretty Link Pro has rapidly become a solid and feature rich link management platform that many websites owners are relying on more and more every day — and it's only going to get better! Here's a small roadmap of some of the upcoming features will be available exclusively to Pretty Link Pro users in the coming months:

PrettyBar enhancements — I've had many requests for ways to make the Pretty Bar more customizable, more interactive and more helpful. Here are just some of the enhancements I have planned:
1. 100% control of the HTML & CSS without having to modify files every time you upgrade PLP
2. Tweet badge which can be optionally integrated into the PrettyBar (you'll be able to get a tweet count on any link you create that uses the prettybar)
3. Ability to modify or remove the Pretty Link Attribution link on the PrettyBar (PLP users are starting to manually replace the standard link I have there with their affiliate links — which I think is a fantastic idea so I'm making it easier to do so)
UI enhancements — there are a myriad of enhancements to the UI that are in the works right now. These enhancements will make creating and managing your links sooo much easier
Better website analytics compatibility
Group specific link defaults — you'll be able to override the global link creation defaults depending on what group a link is placed in.
Firefox Pretty Link Pro Sidebar Widget — this will be a *huge* enhancement — since Pretty Link is getting more hooks into twitter and other social media platforms, you'll be able to do many of the tasks you'd normally perform within your wordpress admin right from Firefox!
Many other smaller — but awesome features 🙂

And remember that even if you purchase PLP today, you'll receive all of these future updates absolutely free!

Affiliate Program

Also, don't forget that when you purchase Pretty Link Pro, you'll automatically be enrolled in the Pretty Link Pro Affiliate Program … So you'll get a 50% commission for every person that purchases PLP using your affiliate link (which you'll get when you purchase)! This is great if you have an affiliate marketing presence, have clients that need Pretty Link Pro or just have friends that need it.

I'm pumped about all the activity that's been going on surrounding Pretty Link Pro and the cool features I'm working on right now. Seriously, between the fact that this the best link management software in the world, you'll get lifetime updates, there's a 100% money back guarantee on it and there's a generous affiliate program along with it — why don't you just get Pretty Link Pro today, start using it to build your brand and make some money while your at it? Sounds like a no brainer to me. 🙂

New Pretty Link Features Added

by Blair Williams · Apr 16, 2009

Well, since the launch of my first public WordPress Plugin, Pretty Link a couple of weeks ago I've had an overwhelming and positive response. I've added several new features that the community has requested in my latest release. I really think that these changes are making Pretty Link the ultimate link shrinking / redirection / tracking method available (I'm using it in my own marketing efforts and love it). Here's a breakdown of what's new in the last few releases (up to the 1.2.5 release) of Pretty Link:

User Interface Enhancements — I just added some nice javascript enhancements to make things easier. I had a few people tell me that they couldn't see the calendar dropdown on the stats page (sometimes flash likes to stay above javascript pop overs) — this has now been fixed. I'll probably be making more of these types of enhancements in coming weeks.
A shot of some of the new enhancements
Simple Link Sharing — Post your links to Twitter or share them via Email … these can be done from the new quick actions link list under each slug name on the main Pretty Link page:
A shot of the new actions bar for each slug
Awesome Click Tracking — You can now see information about each individual click on your site including: Operating System, Browser, Browser Version, Referring URL, IP Address, and even the remote host name.
A shot of the new click tracking details

What do you think?

I seriously want to make this plugin great and I have several ideas for features that I'd like to add soon. Here are some of the possible features I could add to Pretty Link in the near future:

Goal Tracking — say you have users going to a sign up page for your eNewsletter and you want to be able to see how effective it is. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do that easily in Pretty Link?
Pretty Links Widget — I'm thinking that you could put a sidebar widget on your blog that would show all, a selected group or a randomized group of your pretty links. This could be great for Affiliate marketers who promote several different products.
Download Click / Goal Data — I'm pretty sure this one will happen soon, I want to be able to download click data and stats to Excel so that I can analyze it more carefully.
Link Names and Notes — In an effort to keep the interface simple I haven't added a field for a name and description on the edit / new page of Pretty Link. I'm thinking that this may be important for the Widget feature and to generally keep track of links as users have increasing numbers of pretty links (especially if they're using the randomly generated slugs).
Link Filtering & Searching — This would allow users who have large lists of Pretty Links to manage them a little easier — they'd be able to search or filter them.
Optional iFrame Redirection — Okay, now I know that Digg and several other sites that redirect but keep users in their own iframe have been taking a lot of heat lately — but this may make sense for some of us — on some links. I'm thinking this would be a simple bar at the top of the site the user is redirected to that would have your Blog name & subhead and a way to close it. Of course, this would be an advanced option on each Pretty Link and not turned on by default.
Enhanced Reporting — Of course if goal tracking is added, there would have to be goal tracking (with calculated conversion rates) added to the stats page but I'm thinking about adding some other charts including a pie chart of Operating Systems and Browsers. If you have any other stats you'd like to see added to this plugin, please let me know.
Pretty Link Groups — I'm not sure how helpful this would be — or if it would just be confusing but for some users it may be very helpful to be able to group pretty links.
Click Geo Location — I'd love to do this one right now, unfortunately I haven't found a really good way to do it technically in a 100% open source application. If anyone out there knows of a good solution, let me know.

I'd like to thank all of you who have gone out and given me a good rating on Pretty Link's WordPress Plugin Page and have helped to promote this plugin — that kind of response is really fun to see. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions or ideas on how I can make this plugin better … THANKS!