via.mg

A short link for every story you publish, and a share preview that looks its best on Facebook and WhatsApp. via.mg is a small, handmade URL shortener from Madagascar, built to be genuinely enjoyed, and to give you back control of the links you share.

This plugin connects your WordPress site to your via.mg account. Every time you publish a post, it automatically gets its short link, and republishing never creates a duplicate. The short link appears on the edit screen and in the posts list, ready to copy.

What the plugin does

• A short via.mg link for every published post, without thinking about it.
• No duplicates: republishing or updating always reuses the same link.
• A clean social preview: title, excerpt and featured image reused for Facebook and WhatsApp (optional).
• The short link shown on the edit screen and in the posts list, with a copy button.
• Never blocks publishing: if the network fails, the link is picked up on the next save.

What the plugin does not do (on purpose)

No shortcodes, no Gutenberg block, no statistics inside WordPress, no permalink replacement. via.mg does one thing and does it well.

External services

This plugin connects your site to via.mg (https://via.mg), an external URL shortening service. It cannot work without it: short links are created and stored on via.mg, not on your site, and using the plugin requires a free via.mg account and an API token.

Please note that the author of this plugin also operates the via.mg service. The data described below is therefore sent to a service run by the plugin author, and not to an unrelated third party.

The plugin contacts https://via.mg from your WordPress admin only, and only once you have saved an API token. What is sent depends on the action:

• Testing the connection (Settings > via.mg): your API token, so via.mg can confirm it is valid.
• Publishing a post with shortening enabled: your API token, the post permalink and its title. If the social preview option is on, the post excerpt and the URL of its featured image are sent as well.
• Updating a post that already has a short link: your API token, the via.mg identifier of that link, and the same title, excerpt and featured image URL, so the share preview stays in step with the post.

Nothing else is sent. There is no analytics, no telemetry, and no request at all before a token is saved. Requests identify themselves as “via-mg-wp” followed by the plugin version, which says nothing about your site.

Storage, retention and deletion of that data are governed by the via.mg service:

• Terms of Service: https://via.mg/conditions
• Privacy Policy: https://via.mg/confidentialite