Understanding and Displaying Your Pretty Links Click Counts

If you're using the PrettyLinks plugin, you've likely seen the two numbers under the 'Clicks' column on your dashboard, such as '27/27' or '36/61'. This is a common point of confusion for users trying to interpret their link performance data. This article will explain what these numbers mean and how you can potentially access this data for display on your website's front end.

What Do the Two Click Numbers Mean?

Based on community discussion and user discovery, the two numbers displayed in the Pretty Links dashboard represent two different metrics:

• The First Number: This is the total number of clicks recorded for that specific Pretty Link.
• The Second Number: This represents the number of unique users who have clicked the link. This helps you understand your reach by filtering out multiple clicks from the same visitor.

For example, a count of '36/61' means the link has been clicked 61 times in total, but by only 36 different people.

Can I Display This Click Count on My Website?

A frequent question in the community is whether it's possible to display these click statistics publicly on a page or post, for instance, next to the link itself. The short answer, based on official responses, is that this is not a native feature of the plugin.

While some AI chatbots or forums might suggest using a shortcode like [pretty_links_stats id="123"], this functionality is not built into the plugin and will not work.

Potential Workarounds for Developers

For those with development skills, the plugin's data can be accessed directly. Community members have shared that if you know the slug of your Pretty Link (the end part of the URL, e.g., 'o-masa' from https://your-site.com/o-masa), you can use a PHP function to retrieve the link object and its data.

The suggested code snippet is:

$link = prli_get_link_from_slug($slug, OBJECT, true);
$total_clicks = $link->clicks;
$unique_clicks = $link->uniques;

You could use this within a custom shortcode or function that you create to echo the click count value wherever you need it on your site. Implementing this requires custom coding, which is beyond the scope of standard plugin support.

Why Aren't My Clicks Showing on Amazon?

It's important to distinguish between what PrettyLinks tracks and what an external platform like Amazon tracks. This is a separate but common point of confusion.

• PrettyLinks: The plugin accurately records every click that passes through your shortened link on your website. This data is reliable for both free and Pro versions.
• Amazon Associates: Amazon has its own system for tracking clicks that result in a qualifying referral. There is often a significant delay (up to 48 hours) for clicks to appear in your Amazon dashboard. Furthermore, a click on your Pretty Link does not guarantee a recorded click on Amazon's end; the user must meet certain criteria (e.g., not having ad blockers, cookies being accepted) for it to count as a valid referral.

If PrettyLinks shows a high number of clicks but Amazon shows very few, the discrepancy is almost always on Amazon's side, not due to the PrettyLinks plugin.

We hope this clarifies how PrettyLinks tracks clicks and the possibilities for using that data. For more advanced functionality, custom development is typically required.