URL Shortify – Simple and Easy URL Shortener vs GT Link Manager

GT Link Manager is a 100% free high-performance branded link manager for WordPress, no upsells, no premium tiers, no paywalls. It stores links in custom database tables (not custom post types), resolves redirects early on init, and keeps your site fast, even with thousands of links. Your links follow a clean URL pattern: yoursite.com/go/your-slug (the prefix is configurable and can even be removed on individual links). Official Page & Documentation | Free Training Course | REST API & AI Tools Guide Why GT Link Manager? A branded link is a redirect with a job: it has to resolve fast, survive a thousand siblings, and never become the slowest thing on the page. GT Link Manager stores links in custom database tables, not custom post types. It intercepts the request on init at priority 0, looks up the slug in a UNIQUE-indexed column, sends the redirect header, and exits. No theme loading. No template stack. No post query. Storing links as custom post types means a redirect wakes up more of WordPress than a redirect needs. Custom tables keep the resolution path short, and it stays short whether you have 20 links or 2,000. Key Features Fast direct redirects. Resolves links on init (priority 0) via direct DB lookup, no CPT overhead 301, 302, and 307 redirects. Choose the right redirect type for SEO, temporary, or method-preserving redirects Rel attribute controls. Set nofollow, sponsored, and ugc per link for proper SEO attribution Noindex support. Sends X-Robots-Tag: noindex header to prevent search engines from indexing redirect URLs Categories and tags. Organize links into categories with parent/child hierarchy and free-form tags Full admin list table. Search, filter by category/status, sort by any column, and perform bulk actions Quick Edit. Update URL, slug, redirect type, rel, category, and status inline without leaving the list Activate / Deactivate. Disable a link without deleting it; inactive links stop redirecting but stay in the database Trash and restore. Soft-delete links to trash with the option to restore or permanently delete CSV import and export. Import links from CSV with column mapping preview, or export filtered links; includes LinkCentral and Pretty Links compatible presets, supports any CSV though as it allows you to map fields manually. Block editor integration. A toolbar button lets you search your links and insert them directly into post content Branded URL preview. See the full branded URL as you type, with one-click copy Normal and Regex Redirects supported too. Don’t want to use a prefix like /go/ ? Sure thing. Use the GT Link Manager as an alternative to Rank Math Redirections, Yoast Redirects, Redirection plugin etc. Tested to be faster than these top tools. Geolocation targeting. Send visitors from different countries to different destinations on a per-link basis (e.g. India to amazon.in, the US to amazon.com). The country comes from a header your CDN already sends, whether that is Cloudflare, CloudFront, Vercel, App Engine, or an nginx/Apache GeoIP module, so there is no GeoIP database to install, no external API call, and no added latency. Adds roughly 20 microseconds to a geo-enabled redirect and nothing measurable to the rest. Click counting. An optional per-link counter, off by default. Turn it on and each link keeps a running total, shown as a sortable Clicks column and included in CSV export Click tracking integrations. For per-visit analytics, hook gtlm_before_redirect and send events to GA4, Plausible, Fathom, Matomo, or Simple Analytics Developer-friendly. Actions and filters for redirect interception, URL modification, capability control, cache TTL, and more Developer Hooks GT Link Manager provides a comprehensive set of hooks for customization: gtlm_before_redirect, action fired before redirect (use for click tracking or logging) gtlm_redirect_url, filter to modify the destination URL gtlm_redirect_code, filter to modify the HTTP status code gtlm_rel_attributes, filter to modify rel attribute values gtlm_headers, filter to modify redirect response headers gtlm_prefix, filter to override the URL prefix gtlm_capabilities, filter to override the required user capability gtlm_cache_ttl, filter to set object cache TTL for link lookups gtlm_geo_country, filter the detected country code (plug in any detection method you like) gtlm_geo_sources, filter the list of request variables checked for a country gtlm_geo_country_groups, filter country groups usable in rules (ships with EU) gtlm_geo_matched_rule, filter the resolved geo rule before the redirect is sent gtlm_geo_blocked, action fired when a visitor is blocked by a geo rule’s 404 fallback gtlm_link_not_found, action fired when a prefixed link cannot be resolved and a 404 is sent gtlm_404_on_missing_link, filter to disable the 404 for unresolved prefixed links and fall through to WordPress instead gtlm_trash_purged, action fired after trashed links are automatically purged, with the count and retention window gtlm_count_click, filter to skip counting a particular click (exclude logged-in editors, add bot filtering) gtlm_click_recorded, action fired after a click has been counted Click Counting Click counting is off when you install the plugin, and that default is deliberate. With it off, GT Link Manager logs nothing at all about a request, and the privacy statement it registers under Settings > Privacy says exactly that. Turn it on from GT Links > Settings and each link starts keeping one number: how many times it has been followed. That is the whole record. What it stores per click: nothing about the visitor no IP address no user agent no referrer no timestamp A single running total per link cannot be tied back to a person, a session, or a place, which is why enabling it does not drag your site into the analytics-consent conversation. The count is written after the redirect has already been sent to the browser, using fastcgi_finish_request() where the host supports it. On a test install without that function, which is the slower of the 2 paths, a redirect measured 9.0ms with counting on against 9.1ms with it off. Where the number shows up: a sortable Clicks column in the links table, hidden until you switch tracking on a Reset Clicks row action for a single link the total_clicks field in the REST API, read-only a total_clicks column in CSV export Use gtlm_count_click to skip clicks you do not want counted, such as your own logged-in visits. Counting is intentionally shallow. It answers “which of my links get used” and nothing else. Per-visit data, referrers, countries, and time series belong in a real analytics tool, and the Developer Reference has step-by-step guides for wiring gtlm_before_redirect into GA4, Plausible, Fathom, Matomo, Simple Analytics, or a click log table of your own. Free Training Course The GT Link Manager Training is a free course covering installation through developer integrations. Most lessons run 3 to 5 minutes, so you can read the 1 you need instead of the whole thing. Straight to the lesson for a specific feature: Getting Started covers the admin screens and your first link Managing Links covers editing, quick edit, status, and trash Link Categories covers organizing a large library Settings and Configuration covers the prefix, defaults, and advanced modes The Redirect System covers 301, 302, 307, and how resolution works Block Editor Integration covers the GT Link toolbar button and the Button block Import and Export covers the Pretty Links and LinkCentral presets and column mapping Geolocation Targeting covers per-country rules and CDN header detection REST API Reference covers every endpoint and its arguments Hooks and Filters covers all the extension points Troubleshooting covers redirects that do not fire and slugs that collide Source and Issue Tracker GT Link Manager is developed in the open. The full source, including the block editor code that ships compiled in the plugin, is on GitHub: Repository for the code and release history Issues for bugs and feature requests Releases for changelogs and downloadable builds A bug report with your WordPress version, PHP version, and the slug that misbehaved is usually enough to reproduce it. Support Support runs through the WordPress.org support forum for this plugin. That is the fastest route for every kind of problem, and it is the one to use first. Post there and the answer stays public, so the next person with the same redirect loop finds it without asking again. What helps a thread get solved on the first reply: your WordPress and PHP versions the link slug and the prefix you configured what you expected the redirect to do, and what it actually did whether a CDN or page cache sits in front of the site For a suspected bug in the code itself, GitHub Issues works too, and a security report should go to the maintainer privately rather than into a public thread. What Makes GT Link Manager Stand Out Plenty of plugins will shorten a URL for you. These are the things this one does that shaped how it was built. Everything is free. Geolocation targeting, the full REST API, CSV import and export, regex and prefix-free redirects, the block editor tools. There is no Pro tier holding a feature back, no upsell notice in the admin, no telemetry, and no account to create. Nothing here is a trial. Redirects resolve before WordPress wakes up. The lookup runs on init at priority 0, against a UNIQUE-indexed slug column in a custom table. Match found, header sent, exit. No theme, no template hierarchy, no post query, and no slowdown as the library grows. Dead links return a real 404. A trashed or deactivated link stops resolving and says so with the correct status code. It does not quietly serve your front page at HTTP 200, which is what turns a retired affiliate link into duplicate home-page content in a search index. Geolocation costs nothing when you do not use it, and no database when you do. Country detection reads a header your CDN already attaches, so there is no GeoIP file to install or keep updated and no external service in the request path. Links that do not opt in never trigger detection at all. The REST API covers the whole link lifecycle. Create, read, update, trash, restore, and bulk-categorise, with a self-describing schema. That makes the plugin scriptable, and it is why AI tooling can manage links without a browser session. Click counting stores a number, not a person. Turn it on and each link keeps a running total. No IP address, no user agent, no referrer, no timestamp. The write happens after the redirect has already gone out. Your links stay yours. CSV import reads other plugins’ exports so you can move in, and CSV export gives you everything back, geo rules included, so you can move out. Uninstall removes only what you tell it to remove. Honest limits, because they matter more than the list above: the click counter answers “which links get used” and nothing else. Per-visit detail, referrers, and time series need a real analytics tool, and the hooks are there for it country detection is only as trustworthy as the CDN in front of it. A forged header on an origin with nothing proxying it is still a forged header there is no automatic keyword linking. Links go where you put them it is a young plugin, and a young plugin has seen fewer edge cases than an old one Analytics & Advanced Integrations The Developer Reference includes step-by-step integration guides for: Analytics. Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Plausible Analytics, Fathom Analytics, Matomo, and Simple Analytics Tracking. Custom click logging to a database table, dashboard widget, and UTM parameter passthrough Automation. Webhook notifications for Zapier, Make, and n8n Advanced redirects. Role-based redirects (route by user role) and geo-based redirects (route by location) Customization. Custom response headers, hooks and filters reference REST API & AI Tools GT Link Manager has a full REST API that works with AI tools for programmatic link management. The REST API & AI Tools Guide covers authentication setup, all available endpoints, and integration with AI platforms including Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, WP-MCP, Novamira, Claudeus WordPress MCP, and WordPress MCP Adapter. Source Code The block editor assets (blocks/link-inserter/build/) are compiled from the source at blocks/link-inserter/src/ using @wordpress/scripts. The full source code is available in this plugin and on GitHub at https://github.com/wpgaurav/gt-link-manager. To build from source: cd blocks/link-inserter && npm install && npm run build

URL Shortify helps you beautify, manage, and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look how you want using your domain name! It’s a Simple, Easy & Elegant self hosted alternative to Bitly, TinyURL, Cuttly, Pretty Links, URL Shortener By My Theme Shop, Rebrandly, BL.Link, Short.io, and many other SaaS URL Shortener services. ✨Simple and fast URL Shortener! URL Shortify allows to reduce long links from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linked In and top sites on the Internet, You can copy the shortened URL and share it on websites, chat and e-mail Shorten, Share and Track Your shortened URLs can be used in publications, advertisements, blogs, forums, e-mails, instant messages, and other locations. Track statistics for your business and projects by monitoring the number of hits from your URL with the click counter, you do not have to register. URL Shortify enables you to shorten links using your own domain name (as opposed to using tinyurl.com, bit.ly, or any other link shrinking service)! In addition to creating clean links, URL Shortify tracks each hit on your URL and provides a full, detailed report of where the hit came from, the browser, os, and host. URL Shortify is a plugin for people who want to clean up their affiliate links, track clicks from emails, their links on Twitter to come from their own domain, or generally increase the reach of their website by spreading these links on forums or comments on other blogs. 💝WHY You Need Link Shortener aka URL Shortify ➡️ Brand – Enhance brand visibility and trust by putting your brand name on every link you share ➡️ Collaborate – Share branded short links across departments, regions, and teams with one cohesive strategy ➡️ Integrate – Incorporate branded links into your existing processes, workflow, and tools with ease ➡️ Track – Understand social media, email marketing, ads, and SEO through detailed click stats ➡️ Optimize – Growth and Target your audience with our link shortener ➡️ Scale – Increase usage with an infrastructure that can grow at the same rate as your business ➡️ Easy – It’s easy and fast, enter the long link to get your shortened link ➡️ Shortened – Use any link, no matter what size, URL Shortify always shortens ➡️ Secure – It’s fast & secure ➡️ Reliable – All links that try to disseminate spam, viruses, and malware are deleted Features ⚙️ Easy Configuration Easily set up your Link Redirects (301, 302, and 307) and all your Link options 👉 Create Short Links Create short links that your visitors will easily be able to memorize and that you can fit into Tweets, Facebook posts, and more. 👉 Editable Destination URL Update destination URL of branded links anytime. 🔎 Search Links Find a specific branded link using an inbuilt search tool. 👉 Fully Customizable Change settings to make your short links just the way you want them. Make sure your links reflect your brand and stick in the memory! 👉 Hide Affiliate Links URL Shortify is a great way to hide affiliate links. This is a perfect way to ensure that people don’t bypass your links and cost you money! 👉 Easy To Use URL Shortify could not be easier to use. This is a quick way to generate links to any page on your site! 👉 301 SEO Redirect Create branded links that are optimized for search engines 👉 Redirect With 302/307 Headers Redirect your visitors and keep them updated as to what’s going on. This is a good way to deal with dead links and keep that visitor engagement. 👉 Parameters Forwarding Automatically forward parameters to the destination URL by appending them to branded links. 👉 Basic Link Analytics. Track Each And Every User Who Click A Link Full analytics for individual links and link groups, including geo 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 🇫🇷 🇮🇳 🇩🇪 and device information, referrers, browser, IP, and more. 👉 Automatically Create Short Links For Posts & Pages Want to create short links for WordPress Posts & Pages? Don’t worry. We will save you time by creating short links for Posts & Pages automatically. 👉 Organize Short Links In Groups Group links together for easier management and analytics for a group as well as the individual link. 👉 Add & Move links to group in bulk Move links to group and add links to group in bulk using Bulk actions. 👉 Dashboard Get useful KPIs & information right on your dashboard 👉 One Click Share Copy your shortened URL right from the dashboard and share it instantly. 👉 Link Prefix Added Link Prefix setting using which you can set the prefix for all links. Once you set the link prefix, prefix will be added to short links generated after that. 👉 GDPR Privacy As a data processor, URL Shortify is fully compliant with GDPR 👉 Quick Add Dashboard Widget Quickly create short links from WordPress Dashboard using URL Shortify Quick Add Widget. 👉 Import links from CSV file. Exported links from other tools in CSV format? You can directly import all links from CSV file to URL Shortify. 👉 Allow to show Short URL with the Posts, Pages & with the excerpt. With the use of settings you can display Short URL to above & below to Posts, Pages & Excerpt. 👉 REST API to create short links. Able to create short links using WordPress REST API from anywhere. 👉 Email Digest Get daily, weekly and monthly summary of new links and clicks report via email. One click Import from other WordPress plugins We have one click import setup for following WordPress Plugin. If you are using any of the following plugin, you can import all your short links in a single click. 👉 Pretty Links 👉 ThirstyAffiliates Affiliate Link Manager 👉 URL Shortener by MyThemeShop 👉 301 Redirect 👉 Simple 301 Redirects 👉 Redirection 👉 LinkCentral 👉 Short URL Premium Features 📊 Full & Real Time Link Analysis 7 days click history is available with URL Shortify free version. Unlock full click history by upgrading to PRO. 👉 Generate Short Links For Posts, Pages & Custom Post Types in bulk Using Bulk Generate Short Links feature, you can generate Short Links in bulk in a single click. 👉 Cloak Links Link cloaking is the process of disguising the affiliate link URL provided by an affiliate program to obfuscate the affiliate ID and make the link shorter. This protects your affiliate commissions by making the affiliate ID less visible. At the same time, it makes the link more visually appealing to visitors 👉 Popular Links Dashboard Widget Show popular links right from the WordPress Dashboard using Popular Links Widget 👉 Enable/ Disable Shortlinks For Custom Post Types Create short links for all custom post types. You can also enable/ disable the creation of short link for different post types 👉 Meta Refresh Redirect visitors to a target URL with the Meta Refresh Tag 👉 Customize Slug Character Count By default URL slug is of 4 characters. With URL Shortify PRO, you can customize it according to your need 👉 Expired Short Links Decide when a link will be automatically turned off by the system. 👉 Password Protected Links You can also protect your short links with the password with this PRO ONLY feature 👉 Advanced Link Analysis Visualize popular click metrics from audiences like top countries, devices, frequent times, and more 👉 QR Codes Of Short Links Generate QR codes from your branded links 👉 Filter Out Known Robots Clicks Stop tracking clicks from the known robots and track only real clicks. 👉 Exclude IP Addresses Stop tracking clicks that come from specific IP addresses. Add those IP addresses into Excluded IP addresses list. 👉 One Click Social Share Share short links on social media like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Linkedin, Pinterest, Telegram, VKontakte, Email, Hacker News, etc in a single click from the links dashboard 👉 Custom Domains Access short links from multiple custom domains along with your main site. 👉 Access Control Manage roles who can create & manage branded short links, groups and manage settings. 👉 Anonymise Clicks Data Anonymise all click data will anonymise all personal click data like IP address, User-Agents, Referrers, Country, OS, Device, and more without impacting clicks count. 👉 Convert Your Site Into URL Shortener Service Enable public-facing URL Shortener form using which anyone can generate short URL. 👉 UTM Builder Add UTM parameters to destination URLs to get branded link metrics in Google Analytics 👉 Bookmarklet No need to come to URL Shortify dashboard or Chrome or Firefox extension to generate short link. Using Bookmarklet, one can create short link in a single click for any webpage they are visiting. 👉 UTM Presets Save preset templates for UTM parameters and save time when creating branded links. 👉 Export Short links & click history Export click history for analytics purpose. 👉 Case Sensitive short URL Generate short URL case sensitive. That means /abcd & /Abcd have different target URLs. 👉 Dynamic Redirection, aka Traffic Routing Send visitors to specific landing pages or direct them to your mobile app based on their location, device, operating system or Browser. 👉 Delete historical click data Delete historical click data older than 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and all clicks at once. 👉 Tracking Pixels – Retargeting Add retargeting pixels to your links and turn every URL into perfectly targeted ads. Use Google Tag Manager, Facebook pixels to retarget your audience. 👉 Link Rotations Add multiple target URLs for short link and redirect based on the weights of the URL. 👉 WP All Imports Now, you can generate short links automatically after importing Posts, Pages, Products, Courses etc… using WP All Import WordPress plugin. 👉 Filter Links Filter links using Groups, Redirect Types, additional link parameters like Nofollow, Sponsored, Parameter Forwarding & Tracking On/Off, Password Protected links & Expired links. 👉 Tags Quickly add tags to the links and search links based on the tags. It’s a great way to organize links and find them quickly. 👉 Favorite Links Mark links as Favorite and access them quickly using Favorite filter. 👉 Broken Link Checker Quickly find the broken links and restore their functionality, ensuring your website is up and running smoothly. 👉 Auto Link Keywords Automatically link keywords in the content to short links. This is a great way to increase the traffic to your website and also to increase the sales if you are an affiliate marketer. 👉 Splash Page Create a splash page for your short links. A splash page is a landing page that is displayed to the visitors before they are redirected to the destination URL. This is a great way to show some information to the visitors before they are redirected to the destination URL. 👉 A/B Testing Learn how new page components influence users’ behavior by doing A/B Testing 👉 Amazon Affiliates Adds your Amazon Affiliate-Tag to all Amazon URLs before redirection. 👉 REST API to create short links in bulk. Able to create short links in bulk using WordPress REST API from anywhere. 👉 Duplicate Short Links Copy any short link in a single click, one at a time or in bulk. The duplicate keeps every setting of the original — target URL, redirect type, link attributes, expiry, password, custom domain, UTM parameters, tracking pixels, groups and tags — and gets a freshly generated slug, so you can build a new link from an existing one without setting it up again. 👉 Export / Import – Move Your Data Between Sites Move everything URL Shortify stores — links, groups, tags, custom domains, UTM presets, tracking pixels, click history and your plugin settings — from one site to another in a single file. Preview exactly what will be imported before it runs, choose what happens to entries that already exist, and get an automatic backup taken before anything is replaced. Ideal for staging to production workflows and site migrations. Do you want to buy URL Shortify PRO? Buy Now Integrations ➡️ WooCommerce ➡️ Social Linkz ➡️ LifterLMS ➡️ Sassy Social Share ➡️ Easy Digital Downloads ➡️ The Events Calendar ➡️ Events Manager ➡️ WordPress Knowledgebase ➡️ Modern Events Calendar Do you want us to integrate your WordPress plugin with URL Shortify❓❓❓ Let us know. We would love to integrate your WordPress plugins. We will check the possibility of integration and if it matches, we will integrate your plugins too. What users are saying about URL Shortify? 👉 Support & Quality Plugin The support and help in setting up my plugin were fantastic. Mike walked through the specific use case with me. The plugins easy to use, fast, efficient and does what it says. Excited to see it evolve too and kick the competitors! – driverasp Go to URL Shortify plugin review section and read our all reviews. DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS/ FEEDBACK/ FEATURE REQUEST/ BUG REPORT❓ Feel free to create a ticket here. We love to communicate with you and reply to all your queries. Spread The Word ❤️ If you like URL Shortify, please leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and also spread the word about it via Facebook and Twitter. That helps fellow website owners assess URL Shortify easily and benefit from it! What’s Next If you like this plugin then consider checking out our other solutions: Update URLs – Quick and Easy way to search old links and replace them with new links in WordPress If you move your WordPress website to a new domain name, you will find that internal links to pages and references to images are not updated. Instead, these links and references will point to your old domain name. Update URLs fixes that problem by helping you change old urls and links in your website. Logify – Simple & Easy to use activity log plugin for monitor & record system changes Magic Link – Simple, Easy and Secure one click login for WordPress UtilityKit UtilityKit is a powerful and versatile WordPress plugin that provides a collection of essential tools and features to enhance your website’s functionality. It includes a variety of utilities …