Robert Chapin

As of WordPress 3.0, most of this plugin’s original features have been incorporated into WordPress itself. WordPress adds shortlinks to most pages by default. This plugin simply adds a settings page where you can easily make some minor adjustments.
WordPress shortlinks are useful for micro-blogging, by using your own domain instead of a 3rd-party short URL service.
The URLs are automatically added to the HTTP and HTML headers of each post, page, attachment, and category.
A template tag enables you to display a human-readable link in addition to the automatically generated headers. Use of human-readable links is highly encouraged, because Google is known to favor them and rank them higher than some longer URLs. This has the effect of boosting the rank of URLs that were deemed “too long” by Google’s standards. Also, in many mobile web browsers, the easiest way for a visitor to find a short link is by seeing it somewhere on the page.
The template tag idea can be extended further with CSS code for print media, which could ensure that each article’s short link URL is printed along with the article. This will make it much easier for the user to return to the article after reading a hard copy.
<h3>Theme</h3>
Current documentation should be found at <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_shortlink" rel="nofollow ugc">Function Reference/the shortlink</a>
Here is a basic reference for the template functions provided by Simple Short Links. WordPress 3.0+ users, see also wp-includes/link-template.php for more details about the_shortlink().
<pre><code>/**
 * Template Tag for Displaying the Short Link
 *
 * Must be called from inside "The Loop"
 *
 * Call like <?php the_shortlink(__('Shortlinkage FTW')); ?>
 *
 * @since 1.1
 * @param string $text Optional The link text or HTML to be displayed. Defaults to 'This is the short link.'
 * @param string $title Optional The tooltip for the link. Must be sanitized. Defaults to the sanitized post title.
 */
function the_shortlink($text = '', $title = '');
</code></pre>
A second, similar tag is now available in case you need to display a self-referring short link on a category page.
<pre><code>/**
 * Template Tag for Displaying the Short Link for a Category
 *
 * Should be called from outside "The Loop"
 *
 * Call like <? the_single_shortlink(__('Shortlinkage FTW')); ?>
 *
 * @since 1.3
 * @param string $text Optional The link text or HTML to be displayed. Defaults to 'This is the short link.'
 * @param string $title Optional The tooltip for the link. Must be sanitized. Defaults to the sanitized category name.
 */
function the_single_shortlink($text = '', $title = '');
</code></pre>
<h4>The CSS Printing Trick</h4>
Try adding something like this to your theme’s CSS file to make the URL for the short link appear when printed.
<pre><code>@media print {
 .shortlink a:link:after {
 content: " " attr(href);
 }
}
</code></pre>
The CSS example assumes the_shortlink() is used inside of a DIV or P element with a class attribute called “shortlink”.

Simple Short Links

Adjust the WordPress shortlinks format with an extra settings page.

Ryan Street

Jason Grim

Background
WordPress has created the wonderful functionality of generating shortlinks for post on your blogs. With advanced 
permalink structures a single link to your site can take up 89% of a short email or a facebok update. However, 
Wordpress created a very ugly system, the shortlink system simply provides the default permalink structure with ugly 
url variables.
Here is the documentation on adding shortlinks to your themes on the <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_shortlink" title="Wordpress.org - Shortlinks" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress Codex</a>
Use
Some themes use the template method to share the short url of your post. The use of this plugin would convert all of those 
links to trackable ones with bit.ly or shorter ones with the other services.
Also, when you create a new post a button is created next the the URL of your new post. If you click the “Get Shortlink” button 
a popup will provide a simple little link to share with all of your friends and fans.

Generate Shortlinks

Uses bit.ly, Ur.ly, and Is.gd to create handy shortlinks to share your WordPress Posts quickly and easily!

Simple Short Links vs Generate Shortlinks