In a recent update to the WordPress.com stats plugin, the developers have added WP.me shortlink generation functionality to it as well.
What this entails
With version 1.6 of the stats plugin, the once exclusive WP.me shortlink feature will now be available to all users of the self-hosted WordPress. It is definitely a welcomed change as the close control of the WP.me shortening service means that it is less open to abuse.
Of course, now there would be a problem of robot blogs (blogs which auto generate content from other blogs) generating shortlinks as well.
However, one caveat is that the WP.me generation comes with the plugin and there is no way to deactivate it. These leave little option for users who doesn’t want to auto-generate or use the integrated shortlink feature.
Showing WP.me shortlink in themes
With that said, I’ve update my template to reflect the shortlink as well.. You can find a WP.me links on top of the 3rd Partly shortlink in the shortlink section below.
For those who want to display the WP.me shortlinks, add the following to the template :
<a href="<?php echo get_shortlink($post);?>"><?php echo get_shortlink($post); ?></a>
Remember it has to be placed within the WordPress post loop
Future of my URL Shortener Plugin
With this release, I wonder what will be the future of my URL Shortener plugin.
Probably I will now consider adding WP.me support to my URL Shortener plugin. This would thus allow users who don’t use WordPress.com Stats plugin to access the service as well.
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