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"Short URLs"

I heard Garin quit the forum, that's a real shame, he'll be missed :(

Okay not that I use it (yet) but is it possible to do something like tinyurl on twitter? So instead of using tinyurl.com I create http://markswebsite.com/gh7 to direct users to a page on my site. That way I don't have to give out long urls in emails, twitter, facebook etc and I don't have to advertise tinyurl.

So is this a good idea and something I could do? Tinurls expire too right?

Thanks guys, merry christmas!

Oh cool I got some helpful advice after all, thanks guys, I really appreciate it :D I'll give it a try later on today. Great timing too as I just registered my tinyurl.com clone. Only 6 characters too :)

Any luck Machie?

As expected, I made a mistake with the syntax, as it seems you need to also add a slash to the end of the short code to get it to work in the .htaccess file. I've updated the sample in my previous post. I've also added the 301 redirect code, so that the actual address is the one used, and not the short address, so that the proper address gets all the glory.

You may also want to try a single PHP file called "re.php" or something, and place within this file the code:

<?php
if (isset($_GET['web'])) {
$addr = trim($_GET['web']);
$shortcodes = array();
$shortcodes["[B]ah7[/B]"] = "[B]chaper/4.htm[/B]";
$shortcodes["[B]bj5[/B]"] = "[B]page/7.htm[/B]";
$shortcodes["[B]cjh[/B]"] = "[B]the/man.htm[/B]";

foreach ($shortcodes as $name=>$value) {
if ($name == $addr) {
header($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']." 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://markswebsite/".$value);
exit;
}
}
header($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']." 404 Not Found");
} else {
header($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']." 404 Not Found");
}
?>

... and within your .htaccess file, include the lines:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^web/([^/.]+)$ http:///markswebsite.com /re.php?web=$1
RewriteRule ^web/([^/.]+)/$ http://markswebsite.com /re.php?web=$1

This will then redirect any web address that starts with http://markswebsite.com/web/ to the re.php file, with anything after the URL being placed as a query string, which means anything like http://markswebsite.com/web/ [B]ah7[/B] will end up as http://markswebsite.com/re.php?web= [B]ah7[/B], where [B]ah7[/B] is you desired short URL.

Within the PHP file, you should see an array has been created that contains the short URL as the array name, and the real web address as it's value. Just add / remove as desired in this area to make your short URL redirects.

The reason I've added the [B]/web/[/B] part is because I'm not advanced enough in .htaccess URL manipulation to get it done from the root directory, sorry again.

As cjh, mentions there are a few solutions to this.
.htaccess, php, javascript and php/mysql can all be used.

Machie wrote in the past about having 3 or 4 hundred sub domains on the go so he might need to go for a MySql solution to make things manageable!

Google your own tinyurl code for more ideas...



I didn't like to reply before as I thought Machie only wanted to hear from Garin...

Search Freeola Chat

Hmmm... wrote:
> Glad to see you got your website running in the end.
>
> You look different in the pictures than I imagined :¬P
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Search Freeola
> Chat

Like the quad bikes:-)

So where did Garin go....?

It seems like a good idea to me, and is certainly do-able. I've never done it myself, so don't have a quick solution for you, but a small and simple solution would be to create a .htaccess file with the redirects contained in there, such as:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule [B]gh7/[/B] [I]http://markswebsite.com/page/one.html[/I] [B][R=301][/B]
RewriteRule [B]ad6/[/B] [I]http://markswebsite.com/section/two.html[/I] [B][R=301][/B]

... which should take care of what you're after, though it has been a while since I've played with URL re-writing, so that syntax may be slightly inaccurate, sorry.

Alternatively, you could create an index.php with the code:

<?php
header($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']." 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://markswebsite.com/[B]section/two.html[/B]");
?>

... and creating a folder with the short name you want to use, so that a folder called "ad6" contained the index file above, and whenever someone goes to http://markswebsite.com/ad6, the index.php file is loaded, and redirects to the larger URL.

For each folder you create, you'll need to alter the URL in the index.php file to correctly reflect your desired redirect. It may also become a pain to maintain if you have a large number of redirects.

Glad to see you got your website running in the end.

You look different in the pictures than I imagined :¬P







Search Freeola Chat

I heard Garin quit the forum, that's a real shame, he'll be missed :(

Okay not that I use it (yet) but is it possible to do something like tinyurl on twitter? So instead of using tinyurl.com I create http://markswebsite.com/gh7 to direct users to a page on my site. That way I don't have to give out long urls in emails, twitter, facebook etc and I don't have to advertise tinyurl.

So is this a good idea and something I could do? Tinurls expire too right?

Thanks guys, merry christmas!