Title: Bit.ly URL Function – Testing Request
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Bit.ly URL Function – Testing Request

 *  [Brig01](https://wordpress.org/support/users/brig01/)
 * (@brig01)
 * [15 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/bitly-url-function-testing-request/)
 * I’ve been trying lots and lots of different bit.ly scripts in the last few weeks
   but none have worked the way I wanted.
 * Some doesn’t work at all and some work but slow down the site as they call the
   bit.ly API on every page load.
 * So I’ve finally finished my own function which is a mix of several examples I’ve
   found.
 * It calls the bit.ly API only once for each page or post and stores the URL in
   a meta key for future use.
 * I haven’t tested the script much yet so if someone else would like to test it
   as well and let me know if it works OK I would be very happy.
 * Here’s the code that should be placed in functions.php.
 *     ```
       function makeshorturl()
       {
       global $post;
   
       $url = get_permalink($post->ID); //the long url
       $login = 'USERNAME'; //your bit.ly login
       $apikey = 'API KEY'; //bit.ly apikey
   
       $short_url = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten?login='.$login.'&apiKey='.$apikey.'&longURL='.urlencode($url).'&format=json')); //create bitly url
   
       if($short_url->status_code=="200") //make sure bitly returned OK response
           {
       		if(get_post_meta($post->ID, "bitly_url", true) != ""){ //check if a bitly url already exists for this page or post, if it does pull from meta instead of calling bitly
       			$short_url = get_post_meta($post->ID, "bitly_url", true);
       		}
       		else //if bitly url doesn't exist create it and save it to meta for future use
       		{
       			$short_url = $short_url->data->url;
       			add_post_meta($post->ID, 'bitly_url', $short_url, true);
       		}
           }
           else //make us aware if there's an error with the bitly api
           {
               $short_url = "Bit.ly Error! ".$short_url->status_txt;
           }
           do_action('makeshorturl');
           return $short_url;
       }
   
       function shorturl_metabox() //create a meta box for each page and post in admin
       {
           if(is_admin())
           {
               add_meta_box('bitlyurl',__('Short URL','short-url'),'showshorturlbox','post','side');
               add_meta_box('bitlyurl',__('Short URL','short-url'),'showshorturlbox','page','side');
           }
       }
   
       function showshorturlbox() //display the meta box
       {
           echo '<label for="bitlyurl">'.__('Shortened URL','short-url-label').': '.makeshorturl().'</label><br/><br/>';
       }
   
       add_action('publish_post','makeshorturl');
       add_action('publish_page','makeshorturl');
       add_action('do_meta_boxes','shorturl_metabox');
       ```
   
 * Then put the following in your template files where you want to display the bit.
   ly URL
 * `<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bitly_url', true); ?>`
 * **IMPORTANT: Existing content must be re-saved/updated for the function to kick
   in. I haven’t worked out yet how to automatically update existing content.**
 * Hope this can help someone at least!

The topic ‘Bit.ly URL Function – Testing Request’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [bit.ly](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/bit-ly/)
 * [function](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/function/)

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [Brig01](https://wordpress.org/support/users/brig01/)
 * Last activity: [15 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/bitly-url-function-testing-request/)
 * Status: not a support question

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