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5 Open Source URL Shortener Apps for Fast and Secure Link Sharing



The popular open-source URL shortener, YOURLS, was updated to version 1.7.6. The update adds a Bitly-like URL randomizer to the core set of plugins and fixes various bugs. Users that rely on the software are also encouraged to sponsor its development via Open Collective.


For example, if I punched in a URL like animalplanet.com/tv-shows/puppy-bowl/full-episodes/puppy-bowl-xvi into the Hootsuite Ow.ly link shortener, it would generate ow.ly/uK2f50AJDI6. This cuts the link down by 48 letters.




5 Open Source URL Shortener




Sniply.io is a link shortener with a difference. Not only does it create customizable links for your brand, but you can also design CTA blocks and add them to your website, blog posts and social media.


With BL.INK you can also create customshort links for better branding and even test the beta version of Smart Link tocreate highly targeted word-based URLs that will drive traffic to your site andencourage people to convert. And to make sure the right team members accessyour link shortener tool, easily enable user permissions.


T2M is another full-service link shortener that comes with a packed dashboard full of statistics and link activity for you to analyze. Plus, you can create custom branded links that never expire, bulk create links to save time and effort, and share links to social media with one single click.


Polr is an open-source project for those that want to create and host their own URL shortener. Keep in mind, however, this will most likely only work for those that have technical knowledge about things like PHP, Lumen, and MySQL.


The first URL shortener was created in 2002 to shorten links for the now famous social network, Twitter. As the world became more digitally focused, the link shortener became a widely accepted service for a variety of marketing activities.


Since then, the history of URL shorteners has followed the evolution of the Web, and thousands of URL shortening services have been created. Most of them have the same features (like analytics) and are just copies of the same product, but a few are worth a special mention.


You create a package by adding an __init__.py file to a directory.The __init__.py file will stay empty throughout this tutorial.Its only job is to tell Python that your shortener_app/ directory is a package.


Now, you see your message only once.That means that your settings are successfully cached.By adding the @lru_cache decorator, you made your app faster while decreasing the load on computing resources.


No matter in which direction you take the development of your URL shortener, make sure to promote it in the comments below.Bonus points if you post a shortened link that forwards to your hosted project!


GraphQL is an API standard created and open-sourced by Facebook as an alternative to REST APIs. As opposed to REST APIs, GraphQL uses a typed system to define its data structure, where all the information sent and received must be compliant to a pre-defined schema. It also exposes a single endpoint for all communication instead of multiple URLs for different resources and solves the overfetching issue by returning only the data asked for by the client, thereby generating smaller and more concise responses.


Next, you will finish this step by enabling the Django-Graphene library in the project. Django has the concept of app, a web application with a specific responsibility. A project is composed of one or multiple apps. For now, open the shorty/settings.py file in your text editor of choice. This tutorial will be using vim:


This last variable points to your main Schema, which you will create later. In GraphQL, a Schema contains all the object types, such as Resources, Queries, and Mutations. Think of it as documentation representing all the data and functionality available in your system.


This content shows how a GraphQL Query is structured: First, you use the keyword query to tell the server that you only want some data back. Next, you use the urls field defined in the shortener/schema.py file inside the Query class. From that, you explicitly request all the fields defined in the URL model using camel case-style, which is the default for GraphQL.


This receives an argument called url_hash from the URL requested by a user. Inside the function, the first line tries to get the URL from the database using the url_hash argument. If not found, it returns the HTTP 404 error to the client, which means that the resource is missing. Afterwards, it increments the clicked property of the URL entry, making sure to track how many times the URL is accessed. At the end, it redirects the client to the requested URL.


In this tutorial you created a URL shortener service using GraphQL, Python, and Django, using concepts like Queries and Mutations. But more than that, you now understand how to rely on these technologies to build web applications using the Django web framework.


In terms of tools, there are some great sites that handle URL shortening, including full analytics and archives of everything you shorten. For these services (and for URL shortening in general), your URL is replaced by a new domain (e.g., buffer.com changes to bit.ly) and the permalink is replaced by a string of numbers and/or letters (e.g., buffer.com/resources/tiktok-seo changes to bit.ly/3jeYi05/).


Granted, you can manually add UTM tracking codes to any link and shorten them down with a basic link shortener. But some tools will let you preset those tracking codes and then automatically append them to whatever links you shorten.


Why are URL shortener techniques so popular? First, the URL shortener technique allows you to create a short URL that is easy to remember and manage. Say, if you have a brand name, a short URL just consisting of a snippet of your company name is easier to identify and remember.


T.LY URL Shortener is a relatively new link shortener that has been around since 2018. T.LY offers some of the shortest URLs compared to other options because the domain is only 3 characters. T.LY allows users to shorten links, a free browser extension, and track stats for free. Paid plans allow users to unlock additional analytics, custom domains, OneLinks, QR code generator, and many other advanced features. T.LY is the most affordable option compared to other solutions.


Bitly is one of the most popular link shorteners on the market and has been around since 2008. It gained popularity when Twitter implemented it as the default URL shortener when Twitter was primarily used over SMS, and there were limits on the number of characters a tweet could be. A longer URL would significantly limit the length of the tweet. It offers a free plan with essential features and paid plans with more advanced features, but it is much more expensive than some of the alternatives. Bitly also has a great feature that lets you see how many people have clicked on your shortened links.


Rebrandly is another popular link shortener. It offers a free plan and paid plans with more advanced features. Rebrandly also allows you to customize your links so that they include your brand name instead of the Rebrandly domain name. This is a great way to increase brand awareness and build trust with your audience.


There are many great link shorteners out there, each with its own features and pricing plans. In this blog post, we explored five alternatives to Google Link Shortener that you can use to shorten your links. T.LY, Bitly, Rebrandly, TinyURL, and Polr are all great options that offer different features at different price points. So, take some time to explore each one and find the best fit for your needs!


One thing to keep in mind here is that the web client is a browser client-based solution. Meaning that all your saved servers that you have configured will be saved for that browser only. If you jump to a different device and open up your client, you will have to configure it again towards your shlink server.


URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using a redirect which links to the web page that has a long URL. For example, the URL ".mw-parser-output .monospacedfont-family:monospace,monospace _B/subcategory_C/Foo/" can be shortened to " ", and the URL " _shortening" can be shortened to " ". Often the redirect domain name is shorter than the original one. A friendly URL may be desired for messaging technologies that limit the number of characters in a message (for example SMS), for reducing the amount of typing required if the reader is copying a URL from a print source, for making it easier for a person to remember, or for the intention of a permalink. In November 2009, the shortened links of the URL shortening service Bitly were accessed 2.1 billion times.[1]


Other uses of URL shortening are to "beautify" a link, track clicks, or disguise the underlying address. This is because the URL shortener can redirect to just about any web domain, even malicious ones. So, although disguising of the underlying address may be desired for legitimate business or personal reasons, it is open to abuse.[2] Some URL shortening service providers have found themselves on spam blocklists, because of the use of their redirect services by sites trying to bypass those very same blocklists. Some websites prevent short, redirected URLs from being posted.


URLs encoded in two dimensional barcodes such as QR code are often shortened by a URL shortener in order to reduce the printed area of the code, or allow printing at lower density in order to improve scanning reliability.


Not all URI schemes are capable of being shortened as of 2011, although URI schemes such as http, https, ftp, ftps, mailto, mms, rtmp, rtmpt, ed2k, pop, imap, nntp, news, ldap, gopher, dict and dns are being addressed by such services as URL shorteners. Typically, data: and javascript: URLs are not supported for security reasons (to combat attacks like cross-site scripting and session hijacking). Some URL shortening services support the forwarding of mailto URLs, as an alternative to address munging, to avoid unwanted harvest by web crawlers or bots. This may sometimes be done using short, CAPTCHA-protected URLs, but this is not common.[6] 2ff7e9595c


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