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What happened to bitly Pro?

The "bitly Pro" custom white label service is now available to all bitly users!

What features are included in the free bitly product versus Bitly Enterprise?

Please see the Bitly Enterprise product page.

How much does Bitly Enterprise cost?

Bitly Enterprise is $995/month.

What do I need to set up Bitly Enterprise?

To sign up for Bitly Enterprise, you need three things:

  1. A bitly username enabled for Bitly Enterprise.

    • If you don't already have a username, create one on the Sign Up page.
    • To get your username enabled for Bitly Enterprise, please fill out this form: Bitly Enterprise request
  2. A short domain that you own and manage for custom URL shortening. Once your

    • Once your account is enabled for Bitly Enterprise, you configure your Custom Short Domain on the Settings page.
  3. The long domain that you wish to monitor in our real-time dashboard.

    • Once your account is enabled for Bitly Enterprise, you configure your Tracking Domain on the Settings page.
    • Enterprise setup is done with the help of your account representative.

What is the Custom Short Domain?

The Custom Short Domain is the domain that takes the place of "bit.ly" in a shortened URL (e.g., "http://bit.ly/bOm09G" would become "http://your-short-domain.com/bOm09G"). You must have full ownership and control of this domain, since you will need to make a DNS change to complete this step.

Examples:

  • The short domain for The New York Times is "nyti.ms".
  • The short domain for Tech Crunch is "tcrn.ch".

In order to complete this step of the setup process, you will need to make one of the following DNS changes:

  1. Set a DNS A Record making your custom short domain point to 69.58.188.49

    -- or --

  2. If you are using a subdomain for your custom short domain, set a CNAME in your DNS record that points your subdomain to cname.bitly.com

Your Custom Short Domain is automatically tracked within the real-time Bitly Enterprise Dashboard.

Need to register a new domain? For ideas & suggestions for a short domain based on your brand, try the domain name suggestion service, domai.nr. You can also consult the list of top-level domains (TLDs) on Wikipedia for ideas.

What is the Dashboard Tracking Domain?

The Dashboard Tracking Domain is the "long domain," owned and controlled by you that will be used for tracking when end users are shortening links for your site. This is generally the root domain of your main site.

The Bitly Enterprise dashboard returns analytics for how content from your tracking domain is being circulated across the social web, across the universe of all bitly usage. If you own the domain longexample.com and set it as your dashboard tracking domain, all of the bitly redirected traffic to longexample.com would be aggregated into the realtime window in the Bitly Enterprise Dashboard.

Examples:

  • The tracking domain for The New York Times is "nytimes.com". Their short domain is "nyti.ms".
  • The tracking domain for Tech Crunch is "techcrunch.com". Their short domain is "tcrn.ch".

IMPORTANT: The tracking domain cannot be the same as your short domain; however, the short domain can be a subdomain of your tracking domain.

This is ok:

  • tracking domain: foo.com
  • short domain: z.foo.com

This is NOT ok:

  • tracking domain: foo.com
  • short domain: foo.com

What are End-to-End (e2e) Domains?

End-to-End (e2e) Domain configuration is available to Bitly Enterprise users only.

e2e Domains enable complete end-to-end branding of your long URLs, no matter who shortens them.

Here's an example: Let's say you configure "my-long-domain.com" as an e2e domain and your Custom Short Domain is "my-short.com". Any time any bitly user shortens a URL starting with "http://my-long-domain.com/", the resulting short link will start with "http://my-short.com/".

An e2e domain is a domain configured to get shortened using the Enterprise user's Custom Short Domain instead of the "bit.ly" domain, no matter who shortens it.

Example:

Any time any bitly user shortens a long link starting with "http://www.nytimes.com/", the resulting short link will start with "http://nyti.ms/" and not "http://bit.ly/".

Can I use an IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) for my Custom Short Domain?

Yes, you can use an IDN for your Custom Short Domain.

What is the difference between the Enterprise Dashboard and existing bitly URL statistics that I get to when I add a “+” to a bitly URL?

  • bitly tracks the real time social distribution of any given URL. That’s the data you see when you add a “+” to a bitly URL.
  • If you have a tracking domain configured, the free bitly dashboard will provide statistics on links created that point to that domain, as well as clicks on all bitly links that point to that domain.
  • Additionally, the Enterprise Dashboard provides real-time and historical data for all of your e2e domains, enabling direct comparison between the performance of links that you create with your enterprise account versus links that other bitly users create that point to your domains.

Can we have multiple users on a single account?

Multiple users are supported for Bitly Enterprise users.

Can we have multiple Custom Short Domains for one account?

No. There is a one-to-one mapping between a bitly account and a Custom Short Domain. If you wish to have multiple Custom Short Domains, you would need to register a different username for each.

Will my Custom Short Domain work with 3rd-party tools?

Once a Custom Short Domain has been configured for your Bitly Enterprise account, all 3rd-party tools that allow you to enter your bitly username and API key will now shorten URLs with your Custom Short Domain.

Does anything change with how I use the bitly API once I have Bitly Enterprise set up?

Once a Custom Short Domain has been configured for your Bitly Enterprise account, domains shortened under the associated username and API key will now shorten URLs with your Custom Short Domain. You do not need to change your API key or the way your call the API.

What about my existing short URLs created under bit.ly or j.mp?

All of the statistics associated with your bitly or j.mp username will be preserved under your Bitly Enterprise account. Once you have a Custom Short Domain setup under Bitly Enterprise, those hashes migrate seamlessly to your Custom Short Domain (i.e. if you created the URL http://bit.ly/c57f0i under your existing username, under bitly Pro, the URL http://mycustom.domain/c57f0i would redirect to the same destination with the same statistics when you look at the associated info page).

Can I import hashes from another URL shortening service?

We do not currently support this feature, however custom hash spaces will be available for Enterprise users in a coming release.

Why can't I use certain custom keywords with my Custom Short Domain?

All bitly and bitly powered domains currently share the same hash space (the hash is the alphanumeric id at the end of every bitly shortened URL). This means that many of the imported hashes you'd like to import may have already been accounted for in the bitly hash space.

Custom hash spaces will be available for Enterprise users in a coming release.

How do I know when my Bitly Enterprise configuration is complete?

Once your account is enabled for Bitly Enterprise, follow the steps on the "Custom Short Domain" section of the Settings page.

Remember that DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to propagate. Also make sure to log in with your Bitly Enterprise username if you happen to have more than one bitly account.

Can I redirect the root domain for my Custom Short Domain to my own site?

Yes, an Enterprise user's Custom Short Domain is an end-to-end brand. As such, redirecting the root domain makes sense from the point of view of a regular web user.

Your account representative needs to enable root domain redirects.

Do you have any guidance on how/where to select/research/obtain short domains?

The most important decision for Bitly Enterprise is choosing and purchasing a good short domain to match your branding. We strongly suggest the domain name be kept to 5-6 characters. Check out this list on Wikipedia of all of the top-level domains and get creative. Click on the desired TLD on the page to find out the restrictions and available domain registrars. Few people will ever type these domains - instead they will be created via the API, shared, and clicked. Hence, the branding of your short domain should focus on being visibly recognizable - abbreviations and msspllngs lk remvng vwls wrk prtty wll. There’s a scarcity of characters in Tweets and SMS, so every character saved grants you more ability to annotate your message. We do not acquire domains for users.

Can my Custom Short Domain be longer than "bit.ly?"

Yes, but we recommend using a short domain with as few characters as possible. The Custom Short Domain is currently limited to 15 characters.