Overview
Our built-in URL Shortener is a great tool for shortening long URLs or links to include within your emails and texts!
There are times when it is better to shorten your link instead of using the full URL:
Shortening a link allows you to save characters in your text message, and the link can be personalized with your church’s branding!
With the Text In Church built-in URL Shortener, you won’t need to use a third-party service such as bit.ly.
Bit.ly links have been commonly used by spammers and thus are not recommended when sending out mass text messages.
Shorten Links in Messages
When creating your text or email message, click the "Links" option within the message builder
Select "Shortened Links"
You can browse for an existing shortened link you've created or click "Shorten New Link" to create a new one
Fill out the form to create your shortened link and insert it into the message
The newly created shortened link will be stored within the "URL Shortener" section of the Tools tab of your account.
You can make edits to this link if needed from that page!
Create New Shortened Links
You can find the URL Shortener within the Tools tab.
To get started shortening your links, you’ll want to copy the URL and paste it into the provided field.
Then hit the blue Shorten button and you can begin customizing your new, shortened link!
You’ll be able to give your shortened link a title, to make it easier to keep track of. As well as customize how your link is built!
You’ll then be able to choose your default root URL, which will be the beginning of your URL
You also have the option to include an optional prefix, this is not required but can help you create a unique link for your church!
You can then edit the slug of your URL, which will add additional text to the end of your URL and is typically used to refer to the content of the URL.
Editing Existing Links
You can also adjust any existing shortened links in your account in the URL Shortener.
1. You’ll just want to click the three dots next to the URL you’d like to edit.
2. Then you can customize the URL of your shortened link or change the destination URL.
Changing the destination URL will change where the link takes you!
If you need to delete your shortened link, you can do this here as well.
FAQs
What if another account is already using that URL?
If you try to create a shortened link that matches an existing link being used by another account, an error will be displayed and you will need to customize your link to make it unique.
No worries! You can easily do this by adding a prefix or adjusting the slug of your URL.
How can I tell if a User made the link or if it was automatically created?
You can see if a link was created by a User with the icons next to the title of your shortened link!
If the link was created by a User, there will be an icon of a silhouette vs the robot icon if it was created by the system.
You can also filter your URLs by whether they were created by a User or if they were automatically generated.
What is an Automatically Generated or Bot-Generated Link?
When you add a Connect Card link from the Links drop-down box in your Keyword Reply Message, this link has automatically been shortened by the system.
As that shortened link was not created by a User, it is bot-generated!
