Strating a url shortening service...

I am thinking of starting a url shortener service, where the user shortens their url and when they visit their link, a graphic linking to my site displays on a page for 10 seconds, then resumes to their website. It's similar to http://anonym.to/, they show a link to the persons website for a few seconds before showing the redirected site. I'm askng who is the best provider that would offer me to create a service like this for free? Also what is the best method of promoting a url shortening service? Post your recommendations on this thread, I will definitely look into them

EDIT: I just realised you will need a really short url to start something like this. I downloaded some open source script and created the databases etc but once I finished everything I realised who would even bother using my service if my own domain is long? Oh well, at least I got to have a look at the script

I created my own just to keep my hand in with coding - it does most things that I want.

Members area where you can delete / pause / restart links and look at where the clicks are coming from.

As I didn't set out to make it public its a crappy domain name, but like you I am looking for something nice and short and then perhaps I will go on a marketing blitz

Well, I registered Tiny.tl having the same idea in mind!

Well, nothing happened yet! Kinda lazy to make more work on it so that it is fully functional and live to public! so, it is just kept idle as of now!

~ExP~

the short domain is the least of your worries - once your service gets popular, you will have to deal with whole lot of bad links and I mean like nasty and VERY illegal bad, which could get you into trouble as well (especially if you don't know what you are doing)

on the other hand, it can be quite lucrative if you manage to get a lot of people to use your service and then one day simply redirect all the links to a site/offer/whatever of your choice .....ok, that's evil, but just saying

extremephp said:

Well, I registered Tiny.tl having the same idea in mind!

Well, nothing happened yet! Kinda lazy to make more work on it so that it is fully functional and live to public! so, it is just kept idle as of now!

~ExP~

Click to expand...

Sounds like you have the perfect domain name for a url shortening service . Keep doing what you're doing and it could prove very popular...

Your domain name is alot better than interkiwiwebdevelopers dot com (my site's url). I think I'll find it very hard to get a domain name like yours lol. If you keep at it for a few years you could flip the site for a cool few grand .

whats the name of the script you are using ?

Venture said:

whats the name of the script you are using ?

Click to expand...

It's Do you think there are any better ones out there (preferably free)?

sfidirectory said:

Sounds like you have the perfect domain name for a url shortening service . Keep doing what you're doing and it could prove very popular...

Your domain name is alot better than interkiwiwebdevelopers dot com (my site's url). I think I'll find it very hard to get a domain name like yours lol. If you keep at it for a few years you could flip the site for a cool few grand .

Click to expand...

Well, I know that the domain is worth it, but well, kinda lazy, and not in a mood to invest into it!

And its $40 per year for registration though! Not much, considering the URL in my hand! Even shorter that ************ and makes sense as well

I have a jackpot, if I put it into use! And as long as it is kept dumb, it is dumb

Thanks for the wishes though!


~ExP~