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Blair Williams

Everything is an Experiment

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Where Did Pretty Link Cloaking and the Pretty Bar Go?

Where Did Pretty Link Cloaking and the Pretty Bar Go?

by Blair Williams · Sep 24, 2010

This morning Pretty Link disappeared from the WordPress.org plugin repository because it didn't comply with a new, apparently undocumented policy that doesn't allow plugins to cloak links. Pretty Link wasn't the only plugin affected by this policy change, wordpress.org removed all plugins from the repository that allowed users to cloak links.

I've been working with the guys at wordpress.org this morning to get Pretty Link back on the repository. The only way to do this was to remove link cloaking, pretty bar and pixel tracking from the Pretty Link Lite versions 1.4.51 and beyond.

How will this change affect me?

Here are the facts you need to know about this significant change: [Read more…] about Where Did Pretty Link Cloaking and the Pretty Bar Go?

Filed Under: Plugins, Pretty Link, Pretty Link Pro, Pretty Link Pro, Software Tagged With: blog software, cloaking, cloaks, content management systems, plugin, plugins, pretty-link, repository, search engine optimization, Wordpress

New Pretty Link Video Tutorials Added

New Pretty Link Video Tutorials Added

by Blair Williams · Nov 9, 2009

demoI've had a ton of requests from Pretty Link and Pretty Link Pro users to update and expand my video tutorials for these products. I've finally gotten around to recording the first of these.

Do you need help with:

  • Getting started with Pretty Link on your WordPress Website
  • Setting up Pretty Link Redirects
  • Organizing your links with Pretty Link Groups
  • Advanced Link Options
  • Tracking Hits on your Pretty Links
  • Pretty Link Global Options

[Read more…] about New Pretty Link Video Tutorials Added

Filed Under: How Tos, Pretty Link, Pretty Link Pro, Pretty Link Pro, Tutorials Tagged With: pretty-link, Tutorials

How To Start Shrinking Links On Your Domain Name in 5 minutes: Pretty Link Introduction Video

by Blair Williams · Oct 26, 2009

Let me show you how easy it is to be up and running with Pretty Link on your WordPress website in 5 minutes or less!

Download (Right-Click & Select “Save-As”)

Filed Under: How Tos, Pretty Link, Tutorials Tagged With: Domain Name, Installation, pretty-link, started, Video

More Twitter Automation Comes to Pretty Link Pro

More Twitter Automation Comes to Pretty Link Pro

by Blair Williams · Oct 14, 2009

multi_twitterIn the 1.4.27 release of Pretty Link Pro there are some major refinements. The first of these refinements is the ability to set up multiple twitter accounts that your blog can post to. You can now automatically post notifications of each of your blog posts to however many Twitter accounts you want to simultaneously. This feature arose from my need to tweet posts out to 3 twitter accounts that I own — before I was auto tweeting to my main account @supercleanse and then re-tweeting to my other two. This was time consuming and kind of defeated the purpose of auto tweeting altogether.

In addition to multiple twitter accounts, we've optimized the page load time for users of the social media button bar, re-tweet badge and of Pretty Link. Many of the SQL queries were slowing down some of the page load times.

Finally, we made many back end changes to the system so that it will be able to accommodate some of the awesome new features we have planned next (some of which were revealed in this month's survey). Enjoy!

UPDATE: Okay, so there was actually a significant bug that was released with version 1.4.27 — if you haven't done it already go out and upgrade to 1.4.28 where it has been fixed! Sorry for any issues.

Filed Under: Pretty Link, Pretty Link Pro, Twitter Tagged With: Automation, Pretty Link Pro, pretty-link, release, twitter

Pretty Link Adds Robot Filtering and a Bunch of Other Goodies

Pretty Link Adds Robot Filtering and a Bunch of Other Goodies

by Blair Williams · Sep 21, 2009

johnny5Over 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.
[Read more…] about Pretty Link Adds Robot Filtering and a Bunch of Other Goodies

Filed Under: Pretty Link Tagged With: features, pretty-link, Public Link Creation, Robot

Randomized Keyword Replacements and Bookmarklet Updates

Randomized Keyword Replacements and Bookmarklet Updates

by Blair Williams · Aug 21, 2009

I just pushed another release today that I think clears up many issues that users were having plus I got 2 major improvements in.

  1. The first is with the keyword replacement algorithm in Pretty Link Pro. When keyword replacements were turned on and a threshold was set of say, 3 keyword replacements per page, my algorithm was just replacing the first 3 keywords it saw. In this release I altered the algorithm so instead of replacing the first 3, it will now replace them in a more distributed randomized order. This feature request was from one of my users that noted some other apps that were doing this. I dove into the code and luckily my existing algorithm was such that it only took me about an hour to modify.
  2. So, remember how I released the Pretty Link Bookmarklet yesterday? Well, I was immediately flooded for 2 additional features to be added to it. The first was that the title of the URL should be used as the name of the Pretty Link and the second was that people wanted a way to post this link to some of the social networks. In the 1.4.12 release today these features are available.

Here are some screenshots of these features:

1. The way keyword thresholds used to behave
2. The way keyword thresholds work now
3. New Bookmarklet Features Added

Some users have been happy but some others have been a bit bothered that I'm pushing so many updates lately, well don't worry too much … I'm just ramping up for the Official Launch of Pretty Link Pro on September 1. So get ready for some awesome new features to get rolled out next week — I'm working on some really cool stuff for the free & pro users alike!

Filed Under: Plugins, Pretty Link, Software, Wordpress Tagged With: Bookmarklet, Feature, Keyword, Pretty Link Pro, pretty-link, release, Replacement, updates

Create Short URLs on the fly with the Pretty Link Bookmarklet

Create Short URLs on the fly with the Pretty Link Bookmarklet

by Blair Williams · Aug 20, 2009

bookmarkletThe Pretty Link Bookmarklet is finally available! My #1 request from users for a while has been to make it easy to create Pretty Links outside of the WordPress admin — and now you can.

If you aren't familiar with what a bookmarklet is, it's basically a button that you can add to your browser's toolbar that will do some action–in this case it's creating Pretty Links. Bookmarklets are great because they are very simple, javascript based buttons that work in practically every browser.

The Pretty Link Bookmarklet is available starting in Pretty Link version 1.4.11. Here's how you'll go about installing it in your browser once you have version 1.4.11 or greater installed in WordPress:

  1. When inside your WordPress admin, click the menu item: “Pretty Link” -> “Tools”
  2. You'll see a link named “Get PrettyLink” under the Bookmarklet section … you'll want to drag that link to your Browser's bookmark bar

That's all you have to do to install it. Now let's look at how you'd use the Pretty Link bookmarklet:

  1. When you're browsing the web and you find a page that you'd like to create a Pretty Link for, just click “Get PrettyLink” in your toolbar while on that page.
  2. Pretty Link will automatically create the link for you and redirect you to a page where you can copy your newly created Pretty Link.

Here are a few screenshots of the bookmarklet in action (in Safari — but the same steps go for FireFox, IE, etc):

1. Drag the “Get PrettyLink” link into your browser's bookmark toolbar
2. What the bookmarklet looks like after it's installed
3. Find a site you want to turn into a Pretty Link & click the “Get PrettyLink” bookmarklet
4. Get your Pretty Link

I'm currently working on some other ways to easily create Pretty Links soon — so it's only going to get easier to manage your entire link portfolio from Pretty Link!

Filed Under: How Tos, Plugins, Pretty Link, Software, Wordpress Tagged With: Bookmark, Bookmarklet, Browser, Feature, pretty-link

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