URL Shorteners

Lots of folks have been asking me why I took the time to create my own URL shortener at vlink.me (which just redirects you back to this page if you go to the top level domain).

Alex Schleber (whose concept I used to create mine) has his Top 10 reasons.

I used Schleber’s WordPress hack to create mine, so it’s not something that I’ll probably end up using to pimp out to others (meaning have it set up where anyone can use my vlink.me domain to shorten their URL’s), mostly because I can’t provide individualized stats for other users.

So, back to why I made my own.

For the longest time, I didn’t care about tracking or stats, I just wanted short links that would fit into a Twitter box or look nice in an email.

But then I started using the URL shortening services differently. I started customizing the shortened URL’s with my own letters (instead of the random “P8BQ6″ ones that are auto-assigned) and I started taking advantage of the stats, which showed me how many clicks my shortened URL had gotten and from which sites.

I maxed out one free service and was just about to go for a paid upgrade, but I was struggling with the fact that I’m a web developer and have my own stats and reporting programs in-house. I actually thought about doing back-end redirects on a domain, but then I saw Schleber’s post about doing it with WordPress.

It was just a matter of finding some time to sit down and play with it. I did a few things differently, but at the end of the day, it works for me and I’m happy that I took the time to do it.

For an in-depth analysis on URL shortening services, check out this Search Engine Land article.