Go Links, NC State’s own short URL generator, was upgraded on July 3. In addition to a new look for the Welcome page — redesigned to embrace NC State branding standards — there are several features that have been removed, added or enhanced for improved efficiency.

What’s Gone

• The ability to “theme” a link, which added a toolbar to the top of the linked page when displaying it. The presence of a toolbar caused major printing problems, as well as introduced a level of complexity when trying to display the linked page on a mobile device. All Go Links now go directly to the target URL specified in the Go Link.
• The ability to add Google Analytics to a link. Out of 10,000-plus links, only 32 used the Google Analytics options, and some of those were test links created during the development of the Go Links application. Go Links provides its own statistics.

What’s New

• The Link Directory function, which is used to find your own links, links shared with you, or all links.
• The Top 10 Statistics function, which provides a quick snapshot  of the top 10 referring URLs, the top 10 browsers used to access the Go Link, the top 10 IP addresses of the users clicking on the Go Link, and the top 10 modifiers used on the Go Link.
• The Link Details layout has been simplified, making it easier to find what you’re looking for, and things that take longer to calculate and display, such as the statistics, have been moved to a separate section, making the Link Details faster to load for everyone.
• Although most users won’t notice, the admin interface has been improved to allow easier search and management of the links, banned phrases, as well as investigation of invalid links that anyone attempted to create.

For more information or any questions about the service, visit Go Links Help.