Description
Beplus Short Links lets you replace long, ugly URLs with clean branded short links that live on your own domain. Create links like yoursite.com/go/my-link, track every click, and organize links into groups.
Key Features
- Branded short links — Create short URLs on your own domain, no third-party service needed.
- Flexible redirects — Choose 301 (permanent), 302, or 307 redirect type per link.
- Click tracking — Counts total clicks and unique clicks (by hashed IP, 24-hour window). No personal data stored.
- Groups — Organize links into groups for easy filtering and management.
- Analytics dashboard — See total links, total clicks, unique clicks, and your top-performing links.
- Custom slugs — Set your own short slug, or let the plugin auto-generate one from the link name.
- Configurable prefix — Change the URL prefix from
goto anything you like (e.g.visit,r,out). - Clean admin UI — A dedicated menu with list table, add/edit forms, groups management, analytics, and settings.
Privacy
Beplus Short Links records a SHA-256 hash of the visitor’s IP address (salted with your site’s auth key) for unique-click detection. Raw IP addresses are not stored for this purpose. Referer and user agent strings are stored for analytics. This click data stays in your own database and is never sent to a third party.
Two optional features do send data to external services — see “External services” below for full details. Both are disabled by default and only activate when a site administrator turns them on or manually triggers them.
About BePlus
This plugin is built and maintained by BePlus, a WordPress & Shopify development studio. If you need a premium theme, custom development, or ongoing site maintenance, visit beplusthemes.com.
External services
This plugin connects to the following third-party services. Neither is required for the plugin’s core short-link and redirect functionality.
1. ip-api.com (IP geolocation, for Geo-targeting)
What it’s for: determining the country of a visitor’s IP address, so links with country-based redirect rules can send visitors to a different destination URL.
What is sent and when: the visitor’s public IP address is sent to ip-api.com whenever a short link with geo-targeting rules is clicked, but only if the site administrator has enabled “Geo-targeting lookups” in Short Links > Settings. This feature is off by default. Results are cached for 24 hours per IP address to minimize the number of requests.
Service: https://ip-api.com/
Terms of use / Privacy policy: https://ip-api.com/docs/legal
2. api.qrserver.com (QR code generation, by goQR.me)
What it’s for: rendering a scannable QR code image for a short link, shown in the link’s edit screen.
What is sent and when: the short link’s own destination URL (already public), along with the requested image size and format, are sent to api.qrserver.com only when a site administrator manually clicks “Generate QR Code” on that link’s edit screen. No visitor data or personal data is sent, and this never runs automatically.
Service: https://goqr.me/api/
Terms of service: https://goqr.me/legal/tos-api.html
Privacy policy: https://goqr.me/de/rechtliches/datenschutz-api.html
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
beplus-short-linksfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Go to Short Links in the admin menu to start creating links.
- Optionally go to Short Links > Settings to configure the URL prefix.
FAQ
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Visit https://beplusthemes.com/our-templates/ to browse our theme collection, or contact us for custom development and outsourcing services.
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What does the default short URL look like?
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By default, links use the
/go/prefix:yoursite.com/go/your-slug. You can changegoto any slug you like in Settings. -
Will changing the prefix break existing links?
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Yes — existing short URLs using the old prefix will stop working. Update the prefix in Settings, then go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save to flush rewrite rules.
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What is a 301 vs 302 redirect?
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301 (permanent) tells search engines to transfer link equity to the destination. Use it for affiliate links or permanent redirects. 302/307 (temporary) do not pass SEO value and can be changed without search engines caching the destination.
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How are unique clicks counted?
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A click is counted as unique if the same hashed IP has not clicked the same link within the last 24 hours. Raw IP addresses are never stored — only a salted SHA-256 hash.
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Can I organize links into categories?
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Yes. Use Short Links > Groups to create groups, then assign one or more groups to each link from the add/edit form.
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Does this plugin work on multisite?
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The plugin is not tested on multisite in this version. Single-site use is fully supported.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Beplus Short Links” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Beplus Short Links” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.1
- Readme update: added an “About BePlus” section.
1.0.0
- Initial release.
- Branded short links on your own domain.
- 301, 302, and 307 redirect types.
- Click tracking (total and unique) with hashed IP storage.
- Groups (taxonomy) for link organization.
- Analytics dashboard: site totals and top links, plus per-link analytics with top referers and daily click breakdown.
- Add/Edit link form with auto-slug generation.
- Copy-to-clipboard button in link list.
- Configurable URL prefix.
- Nofollow and sponsored rel attribute options per link.
- Auto-link keywords: automatically link keywords in post content to their short URL.
- Bulk redirect type change (set all selected links to 301, 302, or 307).
- Tools page: Export all links to CSV and Import links from CSV (insert and update matched by slug, with row-level error reporting).
- Link expiration: set an expiry date/time or a click limit per link, with configurable expired-link behaviour.
- Device targeting: optionally redirect mobile/tablet visitors to a separate URL.
- Geo-targeting: redirect visitors from specific countries to different URLs. Uses ip-api.com for IP lookup (external request, results cached 24 h, off by default).
- A/B split testing: route a configurable percentage of traffic to a Variant B URL.
- QR code generation: generate a PNG QR code for any short link directly in the edit screen (uses api.qrserver.com, external request, admin-triggered only).
- Full uninstall cleanup.