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chris gow... chris gow...
 
M$3 January 08, 2009 05:37 PM

How can I add a url shortening service to my website?

When I write a blog post, the urls are often very long, but they need to be for SEO purposes. But, when I share those links on Twitter and shorten them with services like budurl.com or is.gd and other re-tweet them, the link juice is lost.

So, I want to add an url shortener to our website so I can create a short version and still get credit for the links.

Is there an application I can add to my web server, ideally a plugin for WordPress, that will enable this?
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bugsy bugsy
 
 January 08, 2009 05:41 PM
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/short-url-plugin/
Short URL allows you to create shorter URL's and keeps track of how many times a link has been clicked. It's useful for managing downloads, keeping track of outbound links and for masking URL's. Clicking the Clear All Clicks button will reset the count for each entry. Visit the plugin page for more information about this plugin.

You can create your own URL shortening service in wordpress:
http://www.webdevlounge.com/wordpress/build-url-shortening-redirection-service-wordpress/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tiny-link/
"Get an alternate TinyURL link for your article or post permalink."
Asker's Rating:
• Great answer customized to my WordPress environment.

I've also found another option that also will manage .htaccess redirection here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/


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clarusvisu... clarusvisu...
 
January 08, 2009 05:42 PM
This WordPress plugin will take a URL like www.stuff.com/aoisj/wjoei/asdoi/link.htm and turn it into www.stuff.com/aois...link.htm.

Is that the type of thing you're looking for?

http://www.village-idiot.org/archives/2006/06/29/wp-chunk/
Source(s):
http://www.village-idiot.org/archives/2006/06/29/wp-chunk/


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bugsy bugsy
 
January 08, 2009 05:46 PM
Works only on comments.

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answerman answerman
 
January 08, 2009 05:58 PM
Looks like bugsy beat you to posting the short-url-plugin

:o(

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bugsy bugsy
 
January 08, 2009 06:19 PM
I think we found it in the same time. I don't think that he is satisfied though, since our answers were marked unhelpful.

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chris gowa... chris gowa...
 
January 08, 2009 06:59 PM
No, I didn't mark it as unhelpful. Someone else must have.

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robbrown robbrown
 
January 08, 2009 05:54 PM
The best way to do this is by using URL Rewriting. It's a function of Apache (the webserver) and is the pro way to accomplish this.

Here's an article that describes exactly how to do it:
http://www.brandonshead.com/2008/12/09/capitalize-on-your-domains-brand-roll-your-own-tiny-url/

If you're not all that comfortable with tech at this level, don't be discouraged! The majority of blogs I read don't realize the value of short URL's - you're one step ahead of them. Simply contact your hosting company and let them know what you want to do. 9 out of 10 webhosts (all the good ones) will quickly and easily help you out.

I sincerely hope that this helps you Chris!
Source(s):
I'm a pro webmaster and have a significant amount of experience running a hosting company.


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easyeboy easyeboy
 
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mckoss mckoss
 
January 08, 2009 06:48 PM
Most of the popular shortening services use what is known as "301 Permanent Redirect". Google has documented, and it has been independently verified, that Google honors 301 redirects as if the links were going to the original page.

In the course of doing research for a URL shortener I'm writing (http://Go2.me), I've tested these most popular URL shorteners and confirmed they are using the 301 Permanent Redirect (as opposed to a 302, 303, or 307 redirection codes):

- http://tinyurl.com
- http://snipurl.com
- http://bit.ly
- http://is.gd
- http://cli.gs
- http://tr.im

I would recommend you NOT use budurl.com, as they use the 307 Temporary Redirect (as of this writing)!
Source(s):
HTTP status codes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
Official Google Suggestion re 301 - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=936...
Independent testing of 301 - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hey-google-im-over-here-a-301-experiment

complete review of the most popular URL shorteners will be posted here soon: http://blog.go2.me


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chris gowa... chris gowa...
 
January 08, 2009 06:56 PM
But, is.gd says that they don't pass link juice.

Look at the last bullet on this page:
http://is.gd/description.php

"If you dislike a website and have to mention it (e.g. when complaining about it), link via is.gd so that your link does not help the site's search engine positioning"

Are you sure they're using a 301 and that it passes link juice?

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mckoss mckoss
 
January 08, 2009 07:54 PM
I believe is.gd is clearly mistaken given the official and tested references I provided (the page you cited looks like someone's throw-away marketing w/o bothering to be sure their claim was valid). If is.gd really wanted to ensure no SEO benefit to their links, they should have used a 302 or 307 Redirect instead (and yes, I verified that their links are indeed 301 links).

It is clear that your links WILL get crawled and get the target page indexed. While no one can tell you with total certainty what Google's ranking algorithms are, I'm pretty confident that a 301 Redirect will be treated as a link to the target page and pass the benefits of PageRank to the target.

Note that Google is very studious in adhering to web standards. Given the semantics of the 301 code as documented, I would be very surprised if they would take it on themselves to re-interpret the meaning of the link, and not treat it identically to a link to the ultimate target.

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mckoss mckoss
 
January 08, 2009 11:15 PM
For the record, I emailed is.gd about their claim and got this response:
----
I have removed this claim. The reason it was inconsistent is because is.gd used to use 302 redirects. I changed this to 301 redirects about 6 months ago based on user feedback, but forgot at the time that search engine positioning was something that was mentioned in the documentation.

Thanks for spotting this,
Richard
----

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chris gowa... chris gowa...
 
January 09, 2009 05:02 AM
Nice work, mckoss!

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offthedome offthedome
 
January 08, 2009 07:08 PM
If you're looking for a url shortening script, you could probably write one yourself that keeps the benefit of having the same link:

Take the following example:

http://randomnonexistentlongurl.com/thisisverylong/blablabla/

What you can do is take the text from the url, shorten it by keeping the first and last fifteen letters or so, and then the middle letters replace them with " ... " without the quotes. Then keep the URL the same. So for example the above link could be
<a href="http://randomnonexistentlongurl.com/thisisverylong/blablabla/">http://randomnonexis ... sverylong/blablabla/</a>

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