Google URL Shortener PHP Class - Goo.gl short URL package blog

Introduction

In this post I will describe how to use the Google URL Shortener PHP Class.

First, the purpose of the class is to shorten or expand an URL using the goo.gl Google service.

It sends a HTTP request to Google goo.gl URL shortener Web services API to generate a short URL for another given URL.

The class also send a request to expand a given shortened URL with the same Google goo.gl service.

Since version 0.2 it also can get analytics information about the accesses to the short url when retrieve the expanded URL.

Initialization

Now lets dig into how to use the class. First you need to create an object of the class like this:


    $goo = new Googl();

If you have an API key for the goo.gl service, you should specify it as a constructor parameter. You need to request an API key in Google site.


    $goo = new Googl( "API Key" );

Get a short URL

To get a short URL you need to call the get_short function and pass the URL as a string parameter like this:


    $r = $goo->get_short( "http://eslam.me" ); 
    print_r($r);

Expand a short URL

To expand a previously shortened URL call the get_long function passing the short url as first parameter.

Pass true as the second parameter value if you want get the access analytics information for that URL. This will make the class return statistics about the number of times the URL was followed, the browsers and countries of the users that clicked on links with the short URL, as well the referrer pages where the short URL links were clicked.


     $r = $goo->get_long( "http://goo.gl/pTgKg", true);
     print_r($r);

Conclusion

Mainly that is how to use it. I tried to keep it simple and easy to use as possible. Your feedback is appreciated.

Please help spreading this class URL by sharing this short URL that points to the class page: goo.le .

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