Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Rather than relying on services such as tinyurl.com or bit.ly, Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain. This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site. In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.

Synected is highly configurable, and can be restricted to only certain Wordpress users, or opened to the general public. It supports common features, such as optional custom URL names and tracking of URL click counts. No .htaccess editing or other advanced installation steps are required; Synected now works with or without Pretty Permalinks.

Synected is currently in beta.

Before proceeding with configuration, perform a standard plugin installation and activate Synected. If you’ve never installed a Wordpress plugin before, follow our step-by-step guide.

Once active, Synected adds an option panel to the sidebar menu. Under ‘Settings’, locate and click the ‘Synected’ menu item. This will bring you to the ‘Synected Settings’ configuration screen.

Base URL

This is the domain off of which all short URLs are built. It defaults to your Wordpress home URL, and usually you will not need to change it. Probably the most common use for this is to remove the ‘www.’ — if your blog is configured on ‘www.example.com’, but ‘example.com’ is also valid, you can set that here and save four characters.

Synected URL

This is the path for the Synected landing page — the custom page that your visitors will use to create shortened URLs. Public URL creation is enabled by making sure both “Require login” and “Require permission” are unchecked. If public creation is disabled, this page can still be used by Wordpress users as long as they are logged in, and have the proper permissions.

Short URL Prefix

Because of the other rewrite rules Wordpress needs to make your blog operate, this option is required for Synected to operate. The prefix is added to the front of all short URLs in order to separate them from the posts and pages on your site. Be sure to choose something that your regular permalinks would never begin with - for this reason, it’s advisable to end your prefix with a forward slash (e.g., i/). This setting is applied directly to the Rewrite Rules, and as a result will process regular expressions. It is necessary to escape any RegEx special characters, a full list of which can be found here.

Short URL Suffix

This setting is optional. The suffix is appended to the end of all short URLs, and follows the same regular expression escaping rules as the prefix. It’s a cosmetic option for the greatest flexibility in formatting the appearance of your short URLs.

Allowed URL Characters

This is an advanced setting, and in most cases, you will not need to change this. The URL codes are generated using the full set of specified characters. The more available characters, the more combinations are possible with a shorter total length. However, not all characters are URL-safe. It’s recommended to test all characters on your server, and remove any characters that cause problems with your web server configuration.

Enable creation from address bar?

This setting determines whether to allow address bar creation. When turned on, a short URL can be created by simply prepending any web address with your domain, e.g.: http://example.com/http://wordpress.org/ If your Wordpress site is configured on a subdirectory, you will need to specify the full path, e.g.: http://example.com/wordpress-location/http://wordpress.org/

Require login?

This determines whether a visitor needs to be logged in to Wordpress in order to create short URLs.

Require permission?

This adds on to the “Require login” option by only allowing access to users with the ‘Create Short URLs’ capability. By default, the Administrator role is given this on activation.

The Role Manager plugin can be used to specify other roles and users that should have this access.

When these options are configured to your liking, Synected is ready to go. Click the ‘Add New’ option under the ‘Short URLs’ menu to get started.

Why is Wordpress 2.7 required?

Synected has been developed and tested only on Wordpress 2.7. In all likelihood, it will work fine on previous versions of Wordpress, although the admin screens may not match the formatting well. One of the goals of the upcoming 1.0 release is to be tested and fully compatible with versions[...] Continue Reading