get social count from short URL and regular permalink

[NicktheGeek]

We've had a request to switch the social count to check the short URL. We cannot reasonably switch to using the short URL only but we can use it as an alternate URL.

Basically, this will use the regular URL for sharing and adds a check against an alternate URL that is the short (ugly) URL for the post. It concatenates the count for both values to show. This way, if someone had been sharing the short URL for their post and switches to simple share, it will keep the count for those short URL shares as social proof.

An alternate method here, which I can easily switch to, is to make the short URL the main URL so it is shared. This frees up potential characters for Twitter shares so it might be preferable, though twitter is doing some stuff with shortening automatically now so the gain is less than it might have been in the past. In this case the "alternate" URL would be the pretty permalink.

@bgardner @omiq what are your thoughts?

[bgardner]

Was the request an isolated one? Is this a flip in methodology based on one person, or an ongoing trend?

If it's working as is, I'd suggest just making the shortlink be the backup, rather than the primary. JMO.

[NicktheGeek]

this was a request that came via a specific VIP customer. In my testing I think it will probably be safer to do as a backup since if the initial address fails that causes some issues with the output. I can find and fix that if we make the short link the primary, but I'm not seeing a huge benefit to doing so.

[NicktheGeek]

for testing verify the counts work correctly and test with post/page short URL to verify the count is updated.

[katyfb13]

@NicktheGeek I'm afraid I don't know how to test this. When I click the social icons on the front end, I don't see an option to use shortened urls. Is that what I am looking for or otherwise, please provide more details as to how to test this.

[NicktheGeek]

@katyfb13 sorry missed your comment. You will need to share the URL using the "pretty" permalink and the short "ugly" URL. This looks like
example.com/post-title
example.com/?p=123

It should count both in the returned value.

[katyfb13]

@NicktheGeek where do I get the pretty permalink? I don't see that option on the front end when I go to share it using the icons. Or is this supposed to be tested another way?

[NicktheGeek]

The pretty permalink is the default URL for your page. The short "ugly" permalink can be accessed via a button in the editor.

[katyfb13]

okay, just to confirm this is the process to test:

1. click a share button
2. in the share window, make sure the url is of the format /post-title > share that
3. click the share button again
4. replace the link with the ugly permalink pulled from the post admin editor
5. check share counts to make sure both shares are recorded

[NicktheGeek]

that should do the trick, though technically you don't have to use the share button to share on the service.

[katyfb13]

I don't think this is working properly. I shared the default url that the app uses (the /post-title) and it was recorded. Then I shared it again on twitter using the "get shortlink" button in the admin (this was an ugly one though) and that share was not recorded. I tried this twice and neither one was recorded.

Let me know if I am not testing it properly.

[omiq]

@NicktheGeek any ideas? So long as the full long URL works we can live with it but as we are waiting on another issue that is holding up packaging, do you think you could take a look?

[katyfb13]

looks like this is not going to make it into 2.0 so I have moved it to the next RM sprint

[NicktheGeek]

sorry, looked through the code here and I realized that I was having some problems in testing and disabled the code in the production (.min) file. It's still got some work that needs doing.

[omiq]

We can do a post 2.0 patch, no problem