Free Link shrinker / redirection script

I thought I'd mention this simple piece of software that I find really helpful. It's a link redirection script that's open-source so it's free, and it's very good.

It's called YOURLS -- Your Own URL Shortener. It's at yourls.org. If you have web hosting with cPanel and it has Softaculous installed, then you can install it with a few clicks. It hasn't been updated in a while, which is fine because it has plugins you can add to do a wide variety of things.

WHY DO YOU WANT IT? Two reasons:

One is that most URL shorteners / redirect services do not allow you to edit the target URLs; some do but only for a limited time, unless you pay them a fee.

But more importantly, when you use a link shortener, it's best if it's located on your domain name so any link juice that accrues with traffic comes back to you, not someone else.

It's really easy to install, has lots of options, plugins to make adjustments for a lot of common things (like allowing '-' and '_' in your short links). It gathers some stats for you. There's a plugin that allows you to filter out your own IP from the stats if you're logged-in. Lots of other benefits.

I got hung-up setting up ScanSuite thinking the custom domain was a redirect; Dave helped me sort that out, but then I realized we're stuck with a custom domain and a log URL to boot. I set up YOURLS on another short domain I have to make a short URL that redirects to my longer ScanSuite URL. It works great!

Just one warning: if you set this up on a domain, make sure you renew the domain its on; if you lose it, all of those links will die.

Let me know if you have any questions.

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