What is Z.ips.ME?

Z.ips.ME is a free program that allows you to use your website as your very own URL shortening service.

What are the benefits of using my own URL shortener?

• You can name your own URLs with relevant keywords. For example z.ips.me/Idea links to a blog post about the origins of Z.ips.ME.
• Only you have access to your data. See what URLs are clicked most often, when they were clicked, what referring sites users came from, and more.
• You control how long your links stay in place. Keep them up forever if you want, or redirect them somewhere else. No more worrying about your shortening service closing down and your links being erased.
• You control whether a link is a 301 redirect (permanent, search engine friendly) or a 302 redirect (temporary).
• You brand your domain instead of bit.ly or tinyurl.com.

Dell recently reported that they've earned over $3 million in revenue via links from their Twitter account. Imagine if they had control of all of those links and all of that data instead of giving it to a third party service.

Show me some screenshots already!

After a successful install you'll be able to log in on the admin page.

Once you log in, you'll be directed to the Admin Home where you can shorten a new link or modify an existing link. Your browser will save your login information in a cookie for up to 1 year. Bookmark this page to make shortening a link just one click away.

You can view real-time stats for each link: number of clicks, top referring web sites that your clicks came from, and the browsers/operating systems of the people clicking.

Download

Z.ips.ME was developed for and tested on PHP 5.1+ and MySQL 4.1.22+

How do I install it?

Installing Z.ips.ME is relatively simple and straight forward:

1. Create a MySQL database and MySQL database user on your web server. Make sure the user has permission to SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and CREATE. Make note of the database name, the database user name, and the password.
2. Open the config.php file in a text editor. Edit the database information, site information, and admin username/password as instructed in the file.
3. Upload the entire contents of the zipsme folder to the directory on your site that you plan on using as your URL shortener (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/zipsme/)
4. Run the install.php file in your browser. If your URL shortener is http://www.yoursite.com/zipsme/, the file will be located at http://www.yoursite.com/zipsme/install.php.
5. After the install script has created the database, it will display a link to the admin section (located at http://www.yoursite.com/admin.php). You can now log in with the username/password combination that you entered into the config.php file.

Tips

• Since the goal is to get short, relevant URLs, you may want to consider purchasing a new domain name if your current domain name is long. There are plenty of short domain names available, particularly with newer extensions like .me
• You should also consider installing Z.ips.ME on a subdomain to decrease the length of your URL (i.e. http://z.yoursite.com/ instead of http://www.yoursite.com/zipsme/)

Common issues

If Z.ips.ME isn't working after installation, it is most likely because of one of the following reasons:

• The .htaccess file isn't uploaded to your server. This file is required for creating your links. If your host doesn't give you permission to upload and modify your .htaccess file, you will not be able to install Z.ips.ME.
• Your database connection isn't correct. Verify that you have filled out the config.php file correctly.

If you are still having troubles, you can email us (see below) and we'll do our best to help.

What software license is Z.ips.ME released under?

Z.ips.ME is released under the GNU Public Licsense, the same license as WordPress.

How can I contact you?

Who started Z.ips.ME?

My name is Adam McFarland. I'm the co-founder of a web development and e-commerce company called Pure Adapt Inc, located in Albany, NY. I originally created Z.ips.ME for internal use within our company.