Twitter Tools: bit.ly Links

Description:

Twitter Tools is an excellent plugin for posting notifications of new blog posts to Twitter. However Twitter Tools just sends the URL to the new post normally which is then shortened by Twitter itself to a bit.ly short link. This is done anonymously.

This plugin will replace the normal URLs sent by Twitter Tools to Twitter with bit.ly URLs tied to your bit.ly account. You can then easily track the number of clicks from your bit.ly profile.

Requirements:

  • Twitter Tools be installed and activated
  • A bit.ly account (free) to view clicks on your links
  • PHP 5.2.0 or newer (PHP4 is dead anyway)
  • WordPress 2.7 or newer

Download:

42 thoughts on “Twitter Tools: bit.ly Links”

  4. I did enter my bit.ly api info, but it did not shorten the link to my blog post (Twitter Tools is installed). Is there any other troubleshooting info you can provide? I did install the tools second…does that make a difference?

  5. Shawn on June 1st, 2009 at 3:14 PM wrote:

    I did enter my bit.ly api info, but it did not shorten the link to my blog post (Twitter Tools is installed). Is there any other troubleshooting info you can provide? I did install the tools second…does that make a difference?

    No, the order doesn’t matter. Mine just is a really fancy plugin that when it comes down to it just registers a filter. Without Twitter Tools installed, it literally does nothing.

    Anyway, I was worried this might happen. I’ve been doing a ton of debugging and as far as I can tell it’s working properly, however none of the links created by the tests showed up in bit.ly account.

    I thought it was just a fluke, due to lack of traffic, or maybe because it was localhost, but apparently not.

    I’ll debug some more.

  6. Great tool. However, while the url’s are shortening they are not tying-in to my bit.ly account. My login & api key are all good, and I’m seeing the green “Your credentials are valid” key on the settings page. Any thoughts n how I can resolve this? Thanks.

  7. See my above comment. I’m currently debugging what’s up. It should be working (I’m creating a new bit.ly link via their API call and passing it off to Twitter Tools instead of the normal link), but that link isn’t showing up for me on my bit.ly profile either (I thought it was just a bug related to localhost).

    Working on figuring out what’s wrong.

  9. Hi,

    When I visit the setting page on my Twitter profile, I am prompted to input my Twitter login info with the hint “Twitter API.” Not sure if it’s the Twitter Tools plugin for WP, but I am also noticing the same issue as above commentere RE: unlinked bit.ly short urls.

  10. As of v1.1.0, the issue has been fixed. My plugin was properly shortening URLs, however it seems you need to add an undocumented “history=1” parameter to the API call in order to get the created URL to show up in your history.

    I’ve tested it and it’s working great now. 🙂

  13. hi, i tried the plug in installed Twitter Tools too but when post that time it will return blank page but the post is published just that it is not twitted. Any idea? I check the API Status “Checking…”? Should the status be checking? Any help pls? Thanks.

  17. I just installed the plugin, but it doesn’t appear to be working properly. I entered my username and API key, and it shows as “Your credentials are valid.” I then created a tweet using the Posts -> Tweet option (to manually post my latest blog post since I wanted to add a hashtag to the end) The post on Twitter has a bit.ly link; however it’s not showing up under my account, it’s listed as being posted by “therealtwitter”, which I assume is the account used if the bit.ly URL is generated by Twitter instead of being shortened using your plugin through their API.

    The information about the link in question can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/info/fnkLt

    Any ideas? I’m running WordPress 2.8, Twitter Tools 1.6, and version 1.1.0 of your plugin.

  18. My plugin does not handle random URLs that you tweet via Posts -> Tweet (I didn’t know anyone actually used that feature).

    It’s only designed to shorten the URL to a new blog post when a new post is announced to your Twitter account. That way you can track clicks to your blog that are coming from Twitter. There’s a filter in Twitter Tools I use to do this.

    In order to shorted URLs typed into manual tweets at Posts -> Tweet, I’d have to regex the tweet looking for URLs and that’s very problematic. I don’t believe many (I didn’t think any) people use that feature due to desktop clients though.

  19. Viper007Bond on June 27th, 2009 at 12:14 PM wrote:

    In order to shorted URLs typed into manual tweets at Posts -> Tweet, I’d have to regex the tweet looking for URLs and that’s very problematic. I don’t believe many (I didn’t think any) people use that feature due to desktop clients though.

    Ah, that explains it then, makes sense. I normally would have used my desktop client, but I saw the option was right there, so I gave it a try. Normally I’d let it directly post the tweet when I published the post, but I did it manually so I could add a hashtag. I’ll make the post manually from my desktop client in the future if I’m going to do that. (Or I’ll see how hard it would be to modify Twitter Tools to allow a hashtag to be added as a custom field or something like that)

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  21. Installed the plugin but for some reason can’t see a settings page or anywhere to enter API data. I don’t *think* I’m being stupid, but you never know…

  22. Richard Elen on July 3rd, 2009 at 3:24 AM wrote:

    Installed the plugin but for some reason can’t see a settings page or anywhere to enter API data. I don’t *think* I’m being stupid, but you never know…

    Settings -> “Twitter Tools: bit.ly Links”

    If it’s not showing up, then you probably aren’t running PHP5. I’ll go release a new version that doesn’t fail silently if your server isn’t up to date.

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  25. Richard Elen on July 5th, 2009 at 4:26 PM wrote:

    [quote comment=”227974″]If it’s not showing up, then you probably aren’t running PHP5. I’ll go release a new version that doesn’t fail silently if your server isn’t up to date.

    Running 5.2.5 here.
    Upgraded to latest plugin, but no change in behaviour.
    Also running WP 2.8 – maybe that’s it?[/quote]

    Nope. I wrote the plugin with WordPress 2.8. Try updating the plugin. It’ll display a red error message if you’re missing the required PHP and WordPress functions.

    If you don’t see that error message and you don’t see Settings -> Twitter Tools: bit.ly Links, then perhaps another plugin is causing the problem or something.

  26. Unfortunately, no error messages, so I imagine that it’s conflicting with something: I’m using the latest version.

    Other active plugins currently are: Akismet, Contact Form 7, QuickTime Embed, Really Simple CAPTCHA, Thesis Openhook, Twitter Tools.

  28. Viper007Bond on July 8th, 2009 at 2:35 AM wrote:

    Try disabling everything but this plugin (even Twitter Tools). Even try reinstalling my plugin and disabling and re-enabling it.

    Tried that – no result. The plugin shows no settings page even when it’s the only one active, or if only it and TT are active. I actually deactivated all plugins, deleted yours, reinstalled it, activated it (no settings page), activated TT (still no settings page) then activated my standard set. No change. It must depend on something else I don’t have. Odd.

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  33. Micah on July 27th, 2009 at 12:45 PM wrote:

    I was having the same issue, but turns out even though my host says “Using PHP 5” I had to actually TELL it to use PHP 5.

    …And that turns out to have been my problem too. My system’s PHP settings said “process with System Default” but the pop-up also allowed PHP4 or PHP5. I set it to explicitly use PHP5 and lo! A settings page! Thanks!

    –R

  34. BTW: Twitter Tools v2.0 (current at RC status) comes with it’s own bit.ly plugin. As such, I will be discontinuing updates to mine in favor of the official plugin.

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  40. Hi to all, i have a little issue with twitter tools that has embedded bit.ly plugin, i have configured all in wordpress blog and created a bit.ly account, then i post something and it tweets in my twitter account but doesn’t show the url to the post.

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