Create Your Own URL-Shortening Service in 15 Minutes

URL shortening is widely used and there are a number of sites, such as tinyurl, that offer the service for free. So, why roll your own?

• Because it’s easy. Using PHP, MySQL, and Apache , it can be done in 3 steps that can take only 15 minutes.
• You reduce your dependency on external services. If a site like tinyurl was to go out of business, any links published through them would be dead.
• You can use any short names you want .

Step 1: Create the schema in MySQL

Login to MySQL and run these queries:

CREATE DATABASE my_tinyurl ;

USE my_tinyurl;
 -- Create a table to hold the mapping from short URL to real URL
 CREATE TABLE links (
 id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
 link VARCHAR(255),
 short_link VARCHAR(100)
 );
 -- Add a user and grant privileges for the database: :
 CREATE USER ‘tinyurl_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
 GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE ON my_tinyurl.* TO ‘tinyurl_user'@'localhost';

-- Add one record for testing
 INSERT INTO links (link,slink) VALUES ('http://bootstrapsoftware.com','b');

Step 2: Script the translation service

Create a file called index.php and place this code inside

<?php
# connect to the database
$db = mysql_connect('127.0.0.1','tinyurl_user','password') or die("Database error");
mysql_select_db('my_tinyurl', $db);

# get the real link
$domain_name = mysql_escape_string($_GET[domain]);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT link FROM links where short_link = ‘$domain_name’");
$array = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
$redirect = (is_null($array['link'])) ? "http://google.com" : = $array['link'];
header(“Location: $redirect”);
?>

Step 3: Rewrite the short link as a GET parameter

In the same directory as index.php, create a .htaccess file and place the following rewrite rules inside:

 RewriteEngine On
 RewriteBase /
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
 RewriteRule (.*) /link/index.php?domain=$1 [L]

New links can be added by manually inserting them into the database. Or, an html GUI and PHP script can be created to add them.

How might you use a service such as this as part of your application or business?