Okay Geek Farm
How to create your own custom short URLs
Chris Self
With the tremendous growth of Twitter in the past years, URL shorteners have become a valuable tool for shrinking long links into small ones that can be tweeted. And with more and more businesses making their way onto 140 chracter limited, social media paradise, they require more custom solutions. Websites like Facebook, Digg, and even T3ch H3lp have custom short links that make sending out tweets so much easier. Find out how to create your own custom short links with our how-to guide.
Step 1 - Signup for a bit.ly Pro Account
To get the ball rolling, head over to the bit.ly website and signup for a Pro Account. It’s completely free of charge, but if you want you can even spend a nice wad of cash and choose an Enterprise Account for only $995 a month. Some of the feature in Enterprise include:
- track multiple domains
- end-to-end branding
- an advanced dashboard
- root-domain redirect
- real-time date analytics
- no rate limits
- customer support
But let’s forget about Enterprise for now, and let’s begin with signing up for a Bit.ly Pro account;
To signup, enter a your name, a username and a password. From there, you’ll be take to the dashboard where you can shorten URLs, sign-in with Twitter, and view analytics. To customize the short link like we want to, signup for a free Pro Account. You’ll be prompted to enter your company name, how you’d like to use it, etc. After you’ve submitted these details, you’re gonna have to wait a day or two for an “invitation.” Once you receive the invitation, your Pro Account will be up and running.
Step 2 - Purchase a domain name
Using a service like Godaddy or Register.com, you’re going to want to find a domain name that reflects your current one. For instance, you can look at our short URL. Instead of “t3chh3lp.com”, we use “t3chh3lp.at.” You can also look at Facebook’s — instead of “facebook.com”, they use “fb.me” as the short URL. They are both Twitter friendly links and it’s best to make sure your’s is too. Note that the domain you choose must be under 15 characters or less to work with bit.ly.
It’s generally recommended that you stay away from the more common domain name like .com, .net, .org, and .biz. Also, be sure to look around for “combination domain names.” For instance, Pepsi uses “pep.si”. Be sure to check out the available domain and choose one that uniquely represents your business.
Step 3 - Set the DNS
Login to your selected domain registrar and find the option to edit the A Record. If you’re using GoDaddy, you’ll find this in your “Advanced Settings” under the DNS Manager. You’ll need to replace what’s there with 168.143.174.97 and then save it. This will point your domain name to the bit.ly servers.
Step 4 - Enter the domain
Login to your bit.ly account and go to the bit.ly Pro Settings page. Type your domain name into the box and hit, “Add Short Domain.” This will point your domain name to your domain registrar. Once that’s done, you’re all ready to go. You can now create custom short URLs and access other features using your Pro Account. It’s that simple.
