An Easy Guide To Make URL Shortener Under Your Domain Name

Being online is all about branding, and it doesn’t matter how you do it, but more people see your brand name, more they are likely to remember it.Using a good URL shortening script you can also configure it to see stats and other details.

Moreover, with growing need of short URL’s (As short URL’s are easy to share on sites like Twitter), it’s a good idea to use your brand name. There are many online resources which let you shorten your long URL links to a compact and much shorter in letters, which are quite easier to share on social services. Today, I will be sharing an easy to follow tutorial for those, who would like to self-host a URL shortener under their domain name. If you own a website and want to create such your URL shortening service then here is a very easy way to do with very little technical skills required. This service is free to use & all you need is a domain name in your Godaddy account. You can use below link & coupon to get the domain name for only $1 (Valid for new account only) & follow the steps outlined below.

Sign up: www.Godaddy.com (Use Coupon: CJC99COM)

A Complete guide to creating URL Shortener under your Domain Name:

Godaddy offers a URL shortener for their customer & anyone who have a Godaddy account can use it. What interesting about this service here is; you can also use your domain to create a URL shortener. You can keep the URL shortener Public or private; that’s your choice. Some of the features of this tool are:

• Check history of all shortened URL’s
• Check statistics
• Edit or delete URL
• Disable Short link anytime
• Offer API (GoDaddy’s link shortening API integrates with your Twitter applications so that you can tweet short links all day long.)

To get started with this, head over to Shortener.godaddy.com & login with your Godaddy account. If you don’t have an account, head over to Godaddy page here & buy a domain name. It’s recommended to buy a 3 or 4 letter domain name to keep your URL short. You can also transfer your existing domain name from other registrars to Godaddy & then use it for URL shortener. If you are planning to do that & need a guide for the same, let us know & one of ShoutMeLoud member will write a guide on the same.

On the shortener.godaddy.com, click on the settings at the top to start configuring

On the settings page, click on help first to get your A & TXT record that we need to update. This will point our domain to Godaddy URL Shortener & then we will be able to further configure everything.

Note: I haven’t tested this method with the domain registered from another registrar. If you anyone of you try it, let us know it works or not.

Editing A record & TXT Value on Godaddy:

• Login to your Godaddy account & click on domains.
• Click on the domain name which you want to configure as a branded short URL
• On the page, click on

Click on Finish & on the next page click on save changes.

Similarly, add TXT value & click on save changes.

Adding custom domain to Godaddy URL shortener:

Usually, the changes take effect within 5 minutes.

Go back to GoDaddy URL Shortener & click on settings.

Let me quickly explain few settings here:

• Base redirects to: When you use your own domain as a shortener, people can use the links you create (e.g., mydomain.com/myLink), but what happens when they go to mydomain.com? Leave this field blank, and they’ll be redirected to our shortener. Enter another domain, and they’ll go there instead.
• Casse sensitivity: Shortened links that are case insensitive will treat upper and lower case links as the same.

Here is what my settings look like:

In case if you get an error “Your domain hasn’t been verified. This can take a few minutes.”, That means the changes have not been replicated & you need to wait some time. Also, Ensure that you don’t have duplicate A record. You can also use DNS lookup over here to check the updated record. Once everything is configured, you can quickly start shortening your URL’s under your branded domain name :)

Test link: http://gdaddyusers.com/4ABM

May 2016 Note: These domains are used just for this tutorial & they might not work after some time.

Alteate methods to create branded custom domain URL shortener:

One popular method is using YOURLS script which is available on Github here. What I like about YOURLS are the plugins. You can add tons of feature to your branded URL shortener with plugins. Though it requires more technical skill than above to run YOURLS.

If you are accustomed to using FTP, database, and making changes in your core file, you should be able to configure YOURLS. I recommend you first to try it on your local installation of PHP and MYSQL server. You can refer to below guides for configuring local PHP & mySQL server.

Another method that I have used is using Bit.ly to create URL shortener. I have been using it for a while but after news about Bit.ly adding affiliate token to many shortened URL’s under the free account, I wouldn’t recommend the same for you or anyone. Overall, the Godaddy method is pretty easy to use & one can get started with his/her branded URL shortener in no time.

If you know of any other useful method to create custom URL shortener, let us know in the comment section below. If you have found this guide useful, do share it with others on Facebook & Twitter.

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