CMShortURL Documentation Release 1.0.0 CMExtension August 08, 2015
Contents 1 Overview 3 1.1 Technical Requirements......................................... 3 1.2 Features.................................................. 3 2 Installation 5 2.1 Upgrading................................................ 5 3 Configuration 7 4 Google Analytics campaign 9 5 Google Analytics source 11 6 Google Analytics content 13 7 Menu item 15 8 Shortened URLs 17 9 Logs 19 i
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CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 CM Short URL is a Joomla! component for shortening URL, it also provides option to add Google Analytics tracking parameters to URL before shortening and option to log visits from shortened URLs. This documentation gives you instruction how to install and setup CM Short URL on your Joomla! website. Contents: Contents 1
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 2 Contents
CHAPTER 1 Overview CM Short URL is a Joomla! component for shortening URL, it also provides option to add Google Analytics tracking parameters to URL before shortening and option to log visits of shortened URLs. If your Joomla! ecommerce site has a long URL like this: http://www.yourstore.com/shop/categories/sale-off/christmas-sale Why don t make it shorter like this before sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or forums: http://www.yourstore.com/off/christmas If the long URL is changed, you can simply change it in CM Short URL and the short URL http://www.yoursite.com/go/chrismas-sale still works and takes your customers to the correct page for Chrismas products. The short URL is easier to remember, easier to share while talking, easier and faster to type in mobile devices. 1.1 Technical Requirements CM Short URL is compatible 3.x.x. CM Short URL is NOT compatible with Joomla! 1.x.x and 2.x.x. Please check Joomla! s Technical Requirements for more information of Joomla! s requirements. 1.2 Features Create short URL with random alias or your own alias. Add UTM parameters of Google Analytics to URL before shortening. Track how many times short URL is visited. Log user s info like IP address, browser, operating system and referral website for every tracked visit. Easy to disable logging and Google Analytics integration if you don t use them. 3
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 4 Chapter 1. Overview
CHAPTER 2 Installation Installing CM Short URL is very easy just like installing any other Joomla! extension. In your Joomla! back-end, you navigate to Extensions -> Extension Manager, click Browse button and select the installation package of CM Short URL on your computer, click Upload & Install button to upload the package to your server and install it. 2.1 Upgrading To upgrade your CM Short URL to a newer version, you can simply install the new version. 5
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 6 Chapter 2. Installation
CHAPTER 3 Configuration In your Joomla! s back-end, you go to Extensions -> CM Short URL to access CM Short URL. The default page of CM Short URL is the list of shortened URLs. On the toolbar there is an Options button, you click this button to configure the component. 7
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 There are 4 configuration options: Long URL s max length: The maximum length of long URLs displayed in URL list. The long URLs which are longer this limit are truncated. This prevents URLs from breaking the page if they are too long. Default value is 150. Random alias s length: The length of random alias. Default value is 5. If you enter your own alias, there is no limit. Enable UTM parameters: Enable UTM parameters if you want to inlucde Google Analytics campaign parameters to your URLs. The options and info of UTM parameters will be hidden if you disable. Logging: Enable logging visitor s IP address, browser info and referral website if the info is available. When you enable UTM parameters, UTM sources, UTM contents and Campaigns are added to the component s submenu. Log menu item is also added to the submenu if you enable logging. 8 Chapter 3. Configuration
CHAPTER 4 Google Analytics campaign Campaigns in CM Short URL is where you manage and create sets of utm_medium, utm_campaign and utm_term of Google Analytics campagins. Go to Extensions -> CM Short URL -> click Campaigns on the left submenu. Campaigns menu item is only visible to you if you enable Enable UTM parameters option in the component configuration. Click New button on the toolbar to create a new campaign. A campaign must have a title, this title is only for internal use, it is not added to original or shortened URLs. The Google Analytics parameters utm_medium, utm_campaign and utm_term are optional, if they are provided they are appended to original URL before shortening. 9
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 10 Chapter 4. Google Analytics campaign
CHAPTER 5 Google Analytics source You need to enable Enable UTM parameters option in the component configuration to use this feature. In Joomla! back-end, navigate to Extensions -> CM Short URL -> click UTM sources on the left submenu. Click New button on the toolbar to create a new utm_source. The title is for internal use, it is not added to original or shortened URLs. utm_source field s value is appended to original URL before shortening. 11
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 12 Chapter 5. Google Analytics source
CHAPTER 6 Google Analytics content You need to enable Enable UTM parameters option in the component configuration to use this feature. In Joomla! back-end, navigate to Extensions -> CM Short URL -> click UTM contents on the left submenu. Click New button on the toolbar to create a new utm_content. The title is for internal use, it is not added to original or shortened URLs. utm_content field s value is appended to original URL before shortening. 13
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 14 Chapter 6. Google Analytics content
CHAPTER 7 Menu item There is only 1 front-end menu item for CM Short URL, it is called Short URL. This menu item is used as the parent menu item of shortened URLs to prevent conflicts with other menu items and other components on the site. This Short URL menu item needs to be used a hidden menu item. Hidden menu or hidden menu item are not visible in your front-end. If you don t have any hidden menu yet, you can create a new one by navigating to Menus -> Menu Manager -> Add New Menu. You can name the new menu s title and menu type whatever you want, in the above screenshot the menu is called Hidden Menu with menu type hidden-menu. To create a new menu item in this menu, you go to Menus -> Hidden Menu -> Add New Menu Item or go to Menus -> Hidden Menu -> click New button on the toolbar. In the form, you click Select button of Menu Item Type field, in the modal window you select Short URL (hidden menu item) in CM Short URL section. 15
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 Give the menu item a title, you can choose whatever title, however you should provide a short value for Alias option, this alias value decides what your short URLs look like. For example of your alias is go like in the screenshot below, then the shortened URLs could look like this: http://www.yoursite.com/go/my-web-page go alias is inspired by NASA s shortening URL system - http://go.nasa.gov. 16 Chapter 7. Menu item
CHAPTER 8 Shortened URLs In Joomla! back-end, navigate to Extensions -> CM Short URL to access the list of short URLs. Click New button on the toolbar to create new short URL. Enter the long URL into URL field. If you use Google Analytics, select Campaign, UTM source and UTM content. If you leave Alias field empty, a random alias will be generated for you. The length of this alias is the limit which you configure in the component s configuration. If you want to have a meaningful and easy to remember alias, you need the alias you want to use into the field. When you have short URLs, the list of short URLs looks similar to the below screen shot. 17
CMShortURL Documentation, Release 1.0.0 The Hits column displays how many times short URL is visited. We use session to check for unique hit, so if you visit a URL again and again in a browser, they are only counted as 1 hit The last column in the list is the icon which open short URL in a new browser/tab when you click. You can test to see if your short URL by clicking the icon of it. 18 Chapter 8. Shortened URLs
CHAPTER 9 Logs In Joomla! back-end, navigate to Extensions -> CM Short URL -> click Logs in the left submenu to access the logs of visitors. Logs menu item is not visible if you don t enable Logging option in the component configuration. The logged information is based on the information in the request from visitor. It is calculated the same as Hits value in URL list (using session). Referral webiste is where visitor clicks short URL. If this information is not available then visitor may directly access short URL or the information is not included in the request. This information is not always correct because technical visitors can set this information before sending the request to your site. Web browser column includes 2 icons for web browser and operating system. You can hover your mouse pointer over the icons to see the names of web browser/operating system. This information is not always correct because technical visitors can set this information before sending the request to your site and some unpopular browsers are not recognized. IP address field contains the IP address from which visitor accesses short URL. If your site is big and has many visitors coming to your site from short URLs, enabling logging may increase the size of your database because the number logged accesses is so big, so you may consider to disable logging. 19