Bitly
URL ShortenersBitly API - Simplify Your Links
Bitly API is a powerful tool that allows you to shorten, customize, and share your links. It offers a wide range of features such as link tracking, analytics, and link cloaking. With Bitly API, you can integrate your links with your apps and websites, automate your link management, and gain insights into your audience's behavior.
Getting Started
To use Bitly API, you need to create an account on dev.bitly.com and retrieve your access token. It will be used to authenticate your requests.
Once you have your access token, you can start using Bitly API. Here's a quick overview of some of the endpoints available.
Shortening Links
To shorten a link, you can use the /v4/shorten endpoint. Here's an example in JavaScript using the fetch() method.
const accessToken = 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN';
const apiUrl = 'https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/shorten';
const longUrl = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript';
fetch(apiUrl, {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Authorization': `Bearer ${accessToken}`,
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({ long_url: longUrl }),
})
.then(response => response.json())
.then(data => console.log(data.link))
.catch(error => console.error(error));
Retrieving Link Metrics
To retrieve the metrics (e.g. clicks, referrers, countries) of a link, you can use the /v4/bitlinks/{bitlink}/clicks endpoint. Here's an example in JavaScript.
const accessToken = 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN';
const apiUrl = 'https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/bitlinks';
const bitlink = 'bit.ly/3E4vf34';
fetch(`${apiUrl}/${bitlink}/clicks`, {
headers: {
'Authorization': `Bearer ${accessToken}`,
},
})
.then(response => response.json())
.then(data => {
data.link_clicks.forEach(click => {
console.log(click.created_at, click.country, click.referrers);
})
})
.catch(error => console.error(error));
Customizing Links
To customize the slug (i.e. the last part of the short URL) of a link, you can use the /v4/custom_bitlinks endpoint. Here's an example in JavaScript.
const accessToken = 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN';
const apiUrl = 'https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/custom_bitlinks';
const longUrl = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript';
const customSlug = 'js-wiki';
fetch(apiUrl, {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Authorization': `Bearer ${accessToken}`,
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({
long_url: longUrl,
domain: 'bit.ly',
custom_bitlink: customSlug,
}),
})
.then(response => response.json())
.then(data => console.log(data.link))
.catch(error => console.error(error));
Conclusion
In this blog post, we covered a few examples of using Bitly API in JavaScript to shorten, customize, and retrieve link metrics. Bitly API offers many more endpoints and features that you can explore to simplify your links and improve your user experience. Happy coding!
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