Hive Blog - URL Shortener and Link Management

Custom Url Shortener and Link Analytics

[hiveam]

Hive Affiliate!

We just started our affiliate program, you can make 5% earnings on any user that buys a Hive Plan for atleast one month. The earnings are based on Plans purchased so if someone that is referred by you gets the Business plan it’s a jackpot.

Head over and register to Hive get a Basic plan and start inviting people. Make some earnings on a monthly basis.

[hiveam]

Introducing Team for Business

We added a new feature to Hive for Business. You can now invite up to 5 people to join your team and help you manage all your social needs and links with Hive.

For Custom Business plan we can increase the number of people according to the needs. This feature is meant for big Agencies with big traffic and multiple customers.

[hiveam]

Custom Aliases

Let me get straight to the point.

Let’s say you got that flashy nice and fresh branded domain added to a certain url shortener not giving names (bit.ly), and you want to share your new line of shampoos with that awesome custom url alias “http://be.st/shampoo”. 

You prepare the link you think of all the details and then press enter!! The below message comes into play:

But then you start thinking, how is this possible I pay 495/month I must be able to have my own custom aliases on my own branded domain without the need of adding shamp00 or other combinations in the game.

Well with Hive you can, from the moment you add your branded domain to our app everything is new for you. 

Sometimes the little guys offer you the best web apps, and when it comes to the price well all we can say foninety is a lot.

Register now on Hive, check the PROMO in the dashboard we got that 10% off on monthly everyone is looking for and those fresh custom aliases for your branded domain.

The Hive Team.

[hiveam]

How to setup a branded short Domain

What is it?

The Branded Short Domain is the domain that takes the place of "hive.am" or “hv.gs” in a shortened URL. To start using a Branded Short Domain, follow these steps: 1) Purchase the short domain you'd like to use. This domain can only be used for your shortened URLs.  You can check iwantmyname.com and buy a short domain. 2) Tell Hive about your domain. Sign in to your Hive account, go to 'settings' from the upper right pull-down menu and click on the 'Domain' tab.

How to setup?

Under 'Domain' add your short domain in the field and press save. You need to be PRO or Business user in order to user the branded domain feature. After becoming PRO user there are no limitations with Hive, as many links and clicks you can carry and this is available for Basic version. We do not believe in PayPerClick.

You can add your Branded Short Domain in the text box provided.

We recommend completing this step first before modifying DNS, so that if you are moving over an existing site you won’t experience any interruption in service. However, don’t take this step until you are ready to update your DNS records. 

And thats it, after the DNS resolves in our IP you can start shortening links with your new awesome branded short domain!

Need Help?

If you need any help with the above setup we are always available to help.

[hiveam]

Launching Hive for Business

What does it offer:

With Hive for Business you receive all the features of Hive, also your company will be hosted on an separated server with your own IP.

You receive unlimited links, clicks, users, billboards, modals. White label which means Hive becomes your Company, own logo, own description and own custom login. 

Will be used only by your Company and no one else, you will have full control over the application.

You can add unlimited users with their own branded domain, there are no limits and there will never be any.

All the updates that the main application receives will be added to your branded application.

Breakdown of Hive for Business

All Features plus:

Own Server/IP

Unlimited Clicks

Unlimited Links

Unlimited Users

Unlimited Social

White Label

Unlimited Billboards

Unlimited Modals

Customizable Polls

Do you need something custom made just for you? We’ll do it.

Get in touch with us for planning.

[hiveam]

Add Hive to your WordPress site

Things to know before starting

We will be using the API of your Hive account to achieve this, therefore you must have an account created. Also,  all of the URLs requested to be shortened will still go through the validation process.  Let’s start!

Setting up the function

First we will start setting up a function to send the request via the API and to display the result. That function must be added to thefunctions.php  file of your theme. If you are using a decent WordPress theme, chances are that that file already exists. If not you can simply create one in your theme folder.

Once that file has been created, you must paste the code below in it and add your API key and the Hive url (e.g. https://hiveam.com).

function shorten_url($url){ $siteurl="https://hiveam.com"; // $apikey="YOUR API KEY"; // You can get it from the user account in settings if($apikey $siteurl){ $short=@file_get_contents("$https://hiveam.com/api?api=$apikey? url=".strip_tags(trim($url))); $short=json_decode($url,TRUE); if(!$short["error"]){ return $short["short"]; } } }

Make sure to replace $apikey by the api key you get from the user panel. An important thing to note about this function is that it does not show the error message. It will only display the short url when it has been successfully shortened. Another thing to note is the name of the function. If you think this name has been taken by a plugin or something else  (which may happen if you use a lot of plugins), then consider changing it to something unique e.g. make_this_url_short($url). 

Add a shortcode feature

If you are an experienced WordPress user then chances are that you became addicted to short codes. These are built in to simplify and to speed writing of content. Registering a shortcode in WordPress is very easy to do. We will use the function above in combination with another simple function to register the short code and shorten the URL via the short code.

We will again add the following codes in functions.php  of the WordPress theme.

/* This function parses the shortcode content and send it to the main function */ function shortcode_shorten_url($atts,$content){   return shorten_url($content); } // This code simply registers the shortcode "shorten" add_shortcode("shorten", "shortcode_shorten_url"); The code above registers the shortcode [ shorten ]THE URL[ /shorten ]. Below is the full code you must add in your theme functions.php. // Main Function function shorten_url($url){ $siteurl="https://hive.am"; $apikey="YOUR API KEY"; // You can get it from the user account if($apikey $siteurl){ $short=@file_get_contents("$https://hiveam.com/api?api=$apikey? url=".strip_tags(trim($url))); $short=json_decode($short,TRUE); if(!$short["error"]){ return $short["short"]; } } } // Shortcode function function shortcode_shorten_url($atts,$content){   return shorten_url($content); } // Register Shortcode add_shortcode("shorten", "shortcode_shorten_url");

To shorten a URL in your post, simply use [ shorten ]THEURL [ /shorten ]. To shorten things like the permalink of the post or page, see the example below.

Shortening Permalinks in your theme files

Now that you set up the function, you can freely use it anywhere you want. All you have to do is to call the main function and provide the URL. If for example you want to shorten the permalink of a post or a page you can use the following code in any part of your template.

<?php echo shorten_url(get_permalink()) ?>

And that’s it! Let us know if this works with your website in the comments below or send us an email at [email protected]. In order to add your branded url to this you will need to upgrade to PRO, then your API will automatically short links with your short domain!

[hiveam]

2015 in review and what's coming in 2016

Farewell 2015, welcome 2016.

Another year has passed and we believe it was a good one, we gained more experience and also released some new features.

Apart from the fact that Hive doesn't make you Pay Per Click, we introduced:

Hive devices and UTM Codes: create links with device forwarding and add UTM codes straight from the Advanced Settings in the Dashboard.

Hive Social: post messages to your social media straight from the confort of Hive's Dashboard.

Hive Modal: create beautiful non intrusive modals and let your customers know the latest news and promotions. Hive Modal auto updates after you modify it in the Dashboard with no need to change the code on your website. You can add the code to as many pages as you want with no extra charge. Adding a short link to Modal will track clicks and offer in depth analytics.

What's coming in 2016:

Hive Teams: You will be able to add team users to your account and assign them different tasks that they can perform inside Hive.

Improved stats page: Our stats page will receive an update which will add more tracking power to your links and new analytics.

Hive Modal update: You will have the possibility to add more things to the Modal like, icons, pictures and newsletter subscription lists.

Multiple Branded Domains: You will be able to add 2 or more branded domains to your account.

And this is just some of the things that we are preparing for 2016 so stay tuned.

Have a great 2016 and see you all in Hive.

[hiveam]

Introducing Modals

Modal Info

Modal is a small popup that will appear in the left bottom corner of your page displaying a small message to visitors about promotions, news, updates, features etc. You can add 5 individual modals to your website, updating them in Hive will automatically update them on your website.

Add Images to the modal

You can now add an image to the modal, you just need to paste the image link and save. The modal will automatically re-size the image/gif to 80x80px so you don’t have too. Supported formats are GIF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, you can see a demo on our blog page or home page.

Add an delay to the modal

You can now add a delay in seconds for when should the modal appear on your web page. So when the visitor arrives if you give it an delay of 10 sec (wait-10) it will not show only after 10 seconds have passed.

Clicks and referrals count

Add an Hive short link in the button so you can track clicks and referrals. Every time someone clicks on the button from the Modal the click will be counted and you can see everything in the dashboard.

Add JS Code to Web page

Copy the JS code from the modal page and add it to the web pages you want the modal to appear in. You can create different modals for different web pages. It’s needed only once to add the code to your website page, every time you want to change something it’s enough to change it in the Modal page and the changes will auto-magically update the modal.

You can see an example of an running modal on our web page and blog. Look on the LEFT!!

Follow @hive_am

[hiveam]

Why you should pick Hive

Let’s break it down a little and analyze the benefits of going PRO with Hive

Below you can see what Hive offers you for the Basic Plan which is free forever!

Unlimited Clicks

Geotargeting

Powerful Dashboard

Social Hive 3 Profiles

Simple link shortening

Detailed analytics

Billboards

Modals

And now lets see what Hive PRO offers you!

Basic Features plus:

Branded Domains

White label Billboards

Data Export

Social Hive 12 Profiles

Social Scheduler

Device Redirect

UTM Campaign Codes

White Label Modals with 6 additional random messages

Remember we offer all the above features with our Basic and PRO packages and we DO NOT charge for link clicks like others do. It doesn’t matter if you have 1k clicks or 10MM it’s all free. Others will give you 1k clicks free then 10$ every 10k Clicks or 10k clicks then give us a call if you wan’t more.

So what are you waiting for? Give Hive a try and you’ll love it! And if you only choose the Basic package there is no problem we still love you.

If you wan’t more details get in touch.

[hiveam]

Hive Explained

In today’s digital age we are consistently sharing links. Whether it’s through e-mail, through social networks, messaging applications or otherwise sharing our favorite pages and staying alert to everything that’s going on online requires quality link sharing. For various social networks and for the convenience of link sharing, quality link shorteners and optimizers are needed. 

With the help of link optimization and shortening tools it’s possible that you can fit all of your favorite links into a single post or quickly share links by SMS message or small screens. HIVE is a brand-new tool that you can use for optimizing text and link sharing across smaller screens, social media, web design and more. Rather than having to fill up your screen with ugly placeholder text for a link, HIVE can optimize and shorten links like you may not have ever thought possible. 

Saving all of your important web space and making it easier to share your links is what HIVE can bring to the table, as well as a whole host of other features. HIVE is more than just a typical URL shortener, it is an all in-one web solution with a full host of analytics, enhancement tools and applications.

THE HIVE DASHBOARD

                                         Rather than having a simple prompt box, by joining HIVE you get access to your very own webmaster dashboard were you have access to a number of applications including the investigation of analytic data, a link storing record and an easy link conversion tool. 

From the dashboard you can access all of the tools that HIVE has to offer as well as quickly shorten a series of links that you might have listed. This dashboard is a great way that you can shorten links are your entire page for writing sales copy, for keeping ongoing lists of shortened links that you can use for your pages or social media accounts and more. The HIVE dashboard is one of the easiest ways that you can keep track of all of your links and the HIVE applications in a simple yet beautiful dashboard system. 

The process for learning the dashboard is very simple and you can keep HIVE bookmarked and signed in ready to start converting links for all of your needs directly from the user interface dashboard.

The dashboard is the easiest link management system you can have access to online. While some other link shortening providers can deliver a record of your recent account optimized links, the dashboard offers arcHIVEd results for managing all of your links in a quick glimpse. Quick views for analytics as well as an arcHIVE of your total optimized links helps you keep track of absolutely every link you shortened with HIVE. Advanced option results can also help you to get just the type of results that you want from the link shortener. 

Through the advanced options you can be sure to save even more characters in your link shortening giving you access to the most optimized shorten links available online. HIVE is your perfect solution for twitter and social media because of these advanced options and arcHIVEs of past links.

ANALYTICS

  Tracking each of your links to make sure that they are receiving the proper amount of engagement and that your shared links are continuing to generate new visitors is very important. Analytics for shortened links are extremely important for any webmaster or social media account marketer. HIVE’s analytics system showcases exactly where links are being accessed from, the type of devices that are accessing the links, the areas in which the links are being followed most and some of the extra back links that are sharing the same links that you produced. 

Finding out where a link trail goes can help you to identify a target market and watch your ideas grow online. By shortening your links with HIVE you get access to detailed statistics for free with every shortened link that you produce. Finding out who is viewing your links and how you can continue to create great content and share great content is very important for any webmaster. With the help of our advanced analytics you can see just how your marketing campaigns are doing and have access to even more analytic data that you might receive from your website dashboard. Sharing your statistics with others is also very easy. 

Every shortened link analytic report also comes with a generated QR code that makes it easy to share all of your statistics with a marketing team or with others online. 

Showcase your success and show off some of your best analytic results with HIVE. All of the Analytics produced by HIVE common and easy to read statistical format. With easy sharing as well as lots of statistical data you can view quick statistics on each link as well as follow up with detailed reports, charts and numbers for every shortened link that you produce using HIVE.

LINK SETTINGS

 Unlike typical link shorteners, HIVE gives you the option of taking your link shortening to the next level. You can customize preferences for link shortening based off of your account, choose link shortening based off of geographical location and assign different analytic reports and tracking for links throughout your profile. 

Password protection for your links as well as extra descriptions, Geo targeting, alias management and more are all available through the advanced options and Link settings page. This is one of the best ways that you can create better engagement and better track analytics throughout your arcHIVEd shortened links. HIVE introduces extra link settings to give you more control than ever before from a shortener. 

Explore the link settings to create shorter length than you ever thought possible and more advanced analytic data then you might even receive from your website.

HIVE APPLICATIONS

Shortening Links on your smart phone generally isn’t the easiest process. With the help of HIVE Applications you can quickly shortened links from an application or automatically shorten links while you use certain applications with HIVE installed on your smart phone. Shortening and managing links with HIVE installed on your phone or mobile device is an absolute breeze. 

As soon as you click on a link in a text message, on a page or on social media you can quickly bookmark and shorten the link, learn more information about the website and quickly share new data as you receive it. HIVE mobile and tablet applications come with a promise that their link shortening, dashboard and analytic reports work just as well as in any browser or on a PC. 

This means that you can get all of the same features from the application that you would normally access on your computer. Website management and link shortening is easier than ever before with HIVE.

BY SIGNING UP FOR HIVE YOU GET ACCESS TO

Link Shortening

Shortening links with HIVE is very easy. HIVE automatically collects data and provides titles and descriptions for each link for SEO purposes. You also get access to a stats page, arcHIVEd saved links as you share them and analytics to help you track all of your shortened links.

Bundle

Grouping your arcHIVEd links around specific targets or products as well as interests is very simple. Using the Bundle tool you can very quickly share short links across your profiles and across social media and marketing accounts. Bundle is one of the easiest tools for marketers to use for shortened links and link building.

Geotargeting

Linking redirected visitors to specific country pages or to specific pages based off of their geographical location is easy with the Geo targeting features. HIVE lets you easily implement data for Geo targeting giving you more options for customizing nation through your link sharing and targeting features. This is an indispensable tool for marketing experts.

Password Protected Links

Sharing private links and information is easier than ever before with HIVE’s password protected shortened links. Protecting your links from unauthorized access is as easy as putting in a password in your advanced options with every link. This can help you share even your most important and links.

Custom Billboards

HIVE can help you to create transitional Billboards with messages to represent your brand or company. These Billboards work well for redirect links and help you get the most of every shortened link for marketing or promotional uses.

Custom Alias

Personalize your links or create multiple aliases for your account. This is perfect for business accounts for individuals that share the same account for link shortening across multiple phones and devices.

Multiple short domains

With access to multiple short domains in a massive domain repertoire you can get access to the shortest links available on your dashboard. Shortened domains based off of your preferences and only with domains you are comfortable using.

Speedy service

All of the data from HIVE is stored using cloud technology. This cloud data is kept under extreme security and it’s easy to access through high-performance cloud servers with very little latency. This means that you can shorten links faster than ever before and recover your data faster than you may have thought possible.

Sharing  

Share your links directly to social media accounts from your dashboard with one click.

Analytics

HIVE analytic data is more advanced than many content management systems and website dashboards. You can get live click data, geographical location data and follow the link as it makes its way from website to website and user to user.

Applications

HIVE applications can be installed in multiple browsers including Safari, android and chrome. HIVE applications are also compatible with many smart phones and tablets for easy link shortening and access to your dashboard on the go.

Export data

You can export all of your analytics data through a QR code as well as keep a summary of your stats in a CSV file. All of your shortened links can be printed out and shared making this the perfect tool for marketing meetings and more. Join your new all in one solution for link tracking, shortening and so much more.

Social Hive

  Schedule or instantly send messages to your social media via Hive, social hive is available for Facebook Profiles, Facebook Pages, Twitter Profile and Google+ Pages. For more info check out Social Hive Post.

[hiveam]

Branded short domain vs standard shortened domain

HEY THERE, VGM.ES IS A BRANDED SHORT DOMAIN.

Wan’t one of your own? Let us know and we’ll get in touch to help set you up.

With Hive, you can shorten, share, and measure link performance across all of your marketing initiatives.

When you create your own Branded Short Domain, you can expect to see up to a 40% increase in CTR when compared to standard hive.am links.

Not interested in Branded Short Domains? Feel free to sign up for a free account to create our standard Hive links here.

[hiveam]

Shorten, Share, Manage. Google Chrome Extension for Social Hive at hive.am

HIVE allows you to shorten URL's, share them, and create a statistic easily.

Shorten your URL's quickly and easily with our web service. You can do this on our website (https://hive.am) or with our native Google Chrome extension. Besides the intuitive usability there are various optional features available. 

Among other things you can set a password for your link or bundle those in order to share or archive them. HIVE can be used anonymously or with an account.

[hiveam]

What is Hive?

Description

The internet is full of long and cumbersome URLs used to name pages and deliver content. Quite often we want to share information with our individual network of friends, colleagues or clients, but copying and pasting long URLs is a messy business. Moreover, once the share has been made there's no way of tracking what happens to the link. There is a multitude of valuable information lost with each URL shared that isn't tracked. This includes not knowing who clicked on the link, when they clicked on it or from where, and not knowing if anyone else shared the link with their network.

The solution

Hive is the perfect URL shortening tool. Hive allows you to turn your long URLs into shortened URLs and custom URLs which are easily shared on the web or with your network. But more than this, Hive allows you to save and track your short links via Hive stats page, and get your hands on otherwise lost yet valuable information.

Why is this important to my Brand?

Audience Discovery

Discover your most untapped social audiences with Hive links and create new custom audiences.

Use branded URLs with your content, messaging, and cross-channel campaigns.

Distribute your content to where your audience is. Or even target audiences by location of device to deliver personalized landing pages.

Custom Keyword Short Links

Use custom keywords to create awareness for your content.

Allow your brand to increase clicks, deliver clear messaging, and offer short, simple URLs.

Tracking & Analytics

Use Hive to see real-time link metrics, discover your audience, and capture leads.

Find out when and where your links were shared through scheduled analytics reports.

Check out our extensions for Safari, Firefox, Chrome to shorten links with ease.

Hive apps!

[hiveam]

How to register with Hive

To get the benefits of the full Hive experience you just need to complete the extremely short registration process for a free Hive account.

What are the benefits of registering with Hive?

All your short links are easy to manage, collected together in one place on your dashboard.

The dashboard also gives easy access to your short URL analytics and viewing statistics.

You have the added benefit of being able to set up branded domains for your links.

How to register with Hive

Registering with Hive is an important step for your brand, and it's a step that couldn't be easier to take.

From the Hive home page click on the 'Sign Up' bottom in the top right hand corner of the page.

Then fill in the simple registration form and click 'Create Account' as shown below.

Verify your account

Shortly after you submit your details you will receive an email asking you to verify your email address in order to start using your Hive account. You will need to follow the instructions in that email before you can access your free Hive account.

If after a couple of minutes the email has not come through then it's worth checking your spam folder. If it's not there then drop us a message at [email protected] and we'll get you set up and make sure that you can start enjoying all of the benefits of Hive URLs!

[hiveam]

When Facebook Bans your Domain

So we had an issue with our stuff it happens we’re only human and our domain was banned by Facebook, actually they banned all our domains (BAN HAMMER FRENZY!!!) and we were devastated but I had hope that we will fix this, not really!

We started a frenzy search on Google about this kind of issue since it didn’t happen to us before and started to see a lot of “hope killers” posts from people with the same issue around the globe, I said we’re fu*ked! A lot of these people were praying to Jesus and Facebook so that their ban be removed but as I saw from the posts it never happen so i panicked, certain people were writing after couple of years that there is no hope in this, change your domain, do redirects and a bunch of other hacks. In my opinion this was not possible because i can understand that Facebook may ban you for different reasons but since Facebook is huge it happens that many of these not guilty domains to slip trough the guilty ones.

This is how  Hive did it.

We started reporting to them with the feedback feature see below

(Yes the domain from the print is still banned we’re waiting on it, Facebook if you see this do it one more time:))

and hope for the best, but as I said Facebook is huge days passed nothing happened probably they have a ginormous queue for this stuff and since we deal with social media management this was bad for us. 

Then I visited their page and saw that certain people from Facebook are active and respond to comments from users and I said to my self why not, so I posted a “I need help message” and the surprise came I got an answer.

I’ve explained to them what happened and what was our issue and they said we’re looking into it, again a week passed and nothing happened, I wrote again, they answered that they are still investigating, some other days have passed nothing happened until the awesome message came in my Support Inbox saying that we have fixed your issue and the feedback you opened is now closed. I’ve rushed to Facebook put my domain into the field and pressed POST and BUM we were back!!

I understand Facebook and the people that do support there, it’s huge they have a lot of stuff on their head and might arrive a bit late to your issue but if you access the right channels and insist to fix your issue they will, after all there are no robots working in Facebook support or so i believe :) 

The moral of the story is, it can be done just insist and they will help you, so with this I would like to thank Shana for helping out!!

[hiveam]

Why Hive is Awesome

For some time I was changing between shorteners from bitly to goo.gl tr.im and others but none of them offered me what I needed and that is the customisation of my alias on my links. Even with a branded domain i couldn’t use what alias i wanted because they were already taken by someone else, well Hive changed that and you have your own alias with your own domain that only you can use and no one else. Another thing that really bothered me was the fact that I added my branded domain to bitly but when you visited the naked short domain instead of taking the user to my own website it would take the user to bitly’s website which is not cool. On top of that now you need to pay after 10k clicks, might be nice for some users that don’t have hight traffic but for people who do it’s going to cost a lot of money, guess what? Hive doesn’t tax you for clicks, why would we do that? It’s crazy…

Give Hive a look you will love it!! 

[hiveam]

We love your feedback – new Social Hive features

Since we launched Social Hive, we’ve already added a few features that users have requested. It is important to hear your feature requests and feedback on Hive – we take it very seriously! That is why we have added a special icon in the app called Feedback. It looks like this:

Click on this icon, type your text and click Send. Done! A few minutes later we get your message and respond as soon as we can. Send us your ideas and let us know what is missing in Hive that you’d like to see added.

Vote today on new features

We have also received some great ideas on our Twitter account and Facebook page. In fact, we are using our Facebook page to ask you vote on some new features we are thinking about for Hive. Go to our Facebook page and vote! (While you are there, like us to get up to date news.)