You have probably noticed a rapid influx of URL shortening services over the last year – from bit.ly to tinyURL and literally 50+ more. Well now you can create your own.
Shorty is a simple tool which provides a tinyURL-like service for your own domain. So, you can have a URL like yourdomain.com/keyword and redirect to any URL on the web. What’s great is that it’s a piece of cake to set up and you can even track how many times each of your short URLs has been used.
5ThirtyOne gives a great run down of how to install the tool, and the wonderful MakeUseOf blog have an in depth review of the app too.
**Update**
Robin Waulters of Plugg and Techcrunch has just recommended a service in the comments below which I hadn’t yet heard of.
The service is called Hover and by the looks of it, it offers a slicker and hosted service which you can also use your own domain for!
Thanks Robin.
More Information
Sounds like Hover to me.
https://www.hover.com/about
Thanks, that was quick :)
Hover’s a Tucows service btw.
I use my own service at my domain httv.biz but had to close it to the public after too many asian p*rn sites created shortcuts using the service!
I had the same problem with a facebook shortcut service. I got 26,000 hits in just over an hour until I switched a particular link off – so it’s often best kept for your own use.
Excellent. http://culld.us (the URL shortener from Cullect) offers a custom domain as well. Details here: http://blog.cullect.com/archive/how-to-build-your-own-url-shortener-in-2-steps
Hi,
I have tired it on my blog http://www.feloos.com but i failed
Please check it at your end.
f
Regarding Hover-
you should know that the following is required:
“In order for the selected domain to work properly, the nameservers must be set to ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com or the domain must be transferred to Hover.”
So if you don’t register your domain with Hover or if you can’t change your nameservers this site will not work for you.
It’s easy to build your own URL shortener. I recently posted an article on how to create one for your site / brand in under 50 lines of code:
http://sean-o.com/short-URL
This one is a webservice for url shortening, with custom domains and no lock in. http://awe.sm
If you use wordpress, theres a cool plugin available called pretty link. Been using this for long with awesome results! I use the free version that just perfectly cloaks and generates a short URL with my domain.
Thanks for your info, Shorty looks promising. ;)
If you use wordpress, theres a cool plugin available called pretty link. Been using this for long with awesome results! I use the free version that just perfectly cloaks and generates a short URL with my domain.
Thanks for your info, Shorty looks promising
Thanks for your info, Shorty looks promising
123132
Cheers Robin, never heard of it – but have just updated the post to include it.
I am looking for software to use on my own website and don’t really care for the Shorty software. I was wondering what program you are using, or if it is one of your own creation.
Thanks for your help
Thomas