Yext supports an integration with Bitly, a software that automatically shortens links and provides link engagement data. This feature is for Admins only.
Note: Links provided must start with an http:// or https:// prefix.
Once integrated, link-type posts suggested to the content library will automatically convert to bit.ly URLs when users publish the posts to social media, allowing you to leverage the Analytics dashboard in your bit.ly account to track additional metrics like click-through rates on your library content.
Admins can also use this to compare how URLs perform across different parts of an organization (as reflected in your organization’s hierarchy).
To enable this feature, please work with your Implementation Manager to get the appropriate configurations enabled. Once this feature is enabled, you can shorten your links (URLs), control your brand and capture your data all by connecting your bitly account to Social.
Note: If the account of the admin who connected the Bitly account to Yext is deactivated, the Bitly account will need to be reconnected.
Click on your desired section for more information.
Connecting Bitly with Yext
For the entire organization:
- Login to the Administrative View
- Select Settings > URL Shortening
- Click Connect Bitly Account
- Follow the remaining prompts
For a specific region:
- Follow the above 1-4 steps
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Email support@hearsaysystems.com requesting regional configuration for the bitly account. Please include:
- The name of the Bitly account
- The region to which it needs to be mapped
Configuring in Bitly
Set default group:
- Log in to Bitly
- Select the drop down by their profile (top right)
- Select Profile Settings
- Select Default API Group
- Select the name associated with the group they would like our API integration to use
Set default domain:
- Log in to Bitly
- Select the drop down by their profile (top right)
- Select group settings
- Select Domain default
- Select the domain they would like our API integration to use.
API Update
As of April 1st, 2020 Bitly discontinued support of their V3 APIs. Therefore, Yext migrated over to the latest version of the Bitly APIs.
For customers using standard Bitly domains, no further action is necessary.
For customers using custom Bitly domains, Yext maps to a specific, Bitly Group ID. If you would like to confirm that your organization is using the correct Group ID at this time, please:
- Log in to your Bitly Account
- Select your account name from the top-left of the Bitly landing page (on the blue toolbar)
- A drop down menu will appear; click on Group Settings
- Choose Default Domain
- Ensure your custom, corporate domain name is selected rather than the generic “bit.ly”
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: My bit.ly account is not shortening any links. Why?
A: First, please ensure that you are pasting the URLs for your links into the URL field within Social, rather than the textbox. If you are still not seeing any results, touch base with your CSM to ensure that the bit.ly account you have connected to Yext is configured correctly for your organization. URLs are not being shortened within Social. They are shortened once a piece of content is actually posted to a social page, not before.
In addition, please ensure you are using an http:// or https:// prefix in your protocol. Otherwise, the system cannot detect the link and shorten it.
Q: How is the enterprise Bitly integration implemented?
For every link in a post that is being published:
Add tracking metadata to the link.
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If the resulting link is valid (the page can be reached):
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Select a shortener account.
If the agent/advisor has a custom Bitly account configured, use that.
If the agent/advisor does not have a custom Bitly account configured, use our enterprise Bitly account (
hearsay.social).
Shorten the link together with the metadata.
If the shortening is successful, use the shortened link.
If the shortening is not successful (e.g. link already shortened with Bitly can not be shortened again), use the original link without adding metadata or shortening.
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If the resulting page can not be reached (is not found or is prohibited): use the original link without adding metadata or shortening
If the resulting page can not be reached (is not found or is prohibited): use the original link without adding metadata or shortening
Link shortening is unrelated to dynamic URLs and URL translation. Shortening works on final URLs, meaning by the time the shortening happens, both the dynamic URL or URL translation replacements already happened. This means that the shortened link contains the dynamic URL or URL translation parameters if those features are enabled by the org and thus doesn’t interfere with them.
Q: What is a link summarizer?
A link summarizer is responsible for parsing the title, description and image of a link, and then displaying it in a nice, user-friendly way.
Yext uses its own summarizer in its post publisher, but each social network has its own. Yext has control over how its summarizer works, but has no control how those of other social networks work.
Q: Why is adding tracking metadata needed?
Tracking metadata is used to provide customer engagement metrics (clicks, likes, comments, …) to the enhanced Content Engagement dashboard. If tracking metadata is not added to a link, it is not possible for Yext to collect and display metrics on link usage.
Q: Can every link be shortened successfully?
No, links that are already shortened with Bitly can not be shortened again. The original, already shortened link will be used without adding tracking metadata.
Q: Why is a link pointing to another page after publishing?
Sometimes a link published through Yext will point to another page after publishing. This happens when the server serving the page the link is pointing to handles the URL incorrectly. Adding the tracking metadata can trigger such behavior, the server hits some internal URL path length limit and responds with a default page.
This is not a problem Yext can solve, it is a problem with the server serving the page the link is pointing to.
It is also not a Bitly shortening problem, it is caused by adding the tracking metadata.
Q: I see a long URL in my published post. Shouldn’t it be shortened using the enterprise Bitly account?
Every link URL should be shortened if possible either using the Bitly account configured for the workspace or by the Yext enterprise Bitly account. When a long (not shortened) URL is displayed in a post that means it was not shortened because at the time the shortening service ran, the URL was not accessible (the page the link was pointing to was not found or restricted access). In these cases the original long URL of the link will be published without adding tracking metadata to it.
Q: Why is a long link not working after publishing from Yext?
If a link with a long (not shortened) URL is displayed on the social network post, that means it was not accessible to the Yext shortener at the time of publishing. If it is also not working on the social network then most probably the link is not correct. It has nothing to do with the Yext enterprise shortener.
Q: Why is a long link displayed even though it is working?
This can happen if the page the link is pointing to was unaccessible at the time Yext tried to shorten the link, but since then it is reachable.
This can also happen for pages where adding the tracking metadata will cause the page to become unaccessible. This is a problem how the page handles additional query parameters added to the link URL. It should silently ignore them, but it does not. There is nothin Yext can do about that. In these cases the original long URL will be displayed without adding tracing metadata and without shortening the link.
When the Yext shortener runs, it checks whether the page the link is pointing to is accessible or not. If it is accessible, it will shorten the link and the post is sent to the selected networks with the shortened link.
When the network receives the link, it will try to summarize it. It is possible that at that time the summarizer can not reach the page the link is pointing to (intermittent connection problems), so the network displays an error message.
When the Yext shortener runs, it checks whether the page the link is pointing to is accessible or not. If it is accessible, it will shorten the link and the post is sent to the selected networks with the shortened link.
When the network receives the link, it will try to summarize it. It is possible that at that time the summarizer is not allowed to view the page the link is pointing to (e.g. if the linked page needs authentication or is restricted to be viewed only in certain countries), so the network displays an error message.
If the summarizer of the social network can not reach the page the link is pointing to, it will display an error to the user. In this case the networks usually display the domain part of the shortened link in the error message. For those links that were shortened using the Yext enterprise Bitly account, the domain is always hearsay.social, this is why it is displayed.
Yext has no control on how a link is displayed on the social networks in case the page it is pointing to is unaccessible.
The social network displays hearsay.social if the link was not accessible at the time its summarizer ran. The link can become accessible later for users, but the summarizer is not run again. This means that the user can sometimes click on and follow a link in a post event though it is shown as not accessible.
Yext has no control on how a link is displayed on the social networks in case the page it is pointing to is unaccessible.
It is up to the social network how it displays links in posts. Most networks try to summarize it and display it in a nice, user-friendly way, but they behave differently when the link can not be summarized.
Facebook and LinkedIn will display the nice, user-friendly summarized content, but with error messages.
Typically every social network can summarize only one link. If the post contains more than one link, one is summarized, but the other is displayed as is.
Yext has no control on how a link is displayed on the social networks in case the page it is pointing to is unaccessible.