Xavier Media®

After a nice idea I got from one of our blog visitors (read this) we've added support for your own Yourls.org installation in the WP-Status.net plugin for WordPress.

Yourls.org is simply your own URL shortener service on your own domain name. This is perfect because you have full control over your own URLs and you also get your own brand in the short URL, instead of for example TinyURL or some other URL shortener service. You can of course still use many other shorteners in WP-Status.net if you like so you don't have to switch to Yourls.org just because we've added that option

The setup is pretty simple, you just download the plugin (or update if you already have it installed in your WordPress blog). Then you get the latest version of Yourls.org from their web site and set it up on your site. If you need a new short domain name for your link shortener service you can get a cheap domain name from eXavier.com for as little as $1.99 if you get hosting at the same time.

When you you setup Yourls.org you need to set it up to support API keys/signatures. For more information on that, please have a look at the Yourls.org documentation here. Using the user name/password option for Yourls.org will not work with the WP-Status.net plugin!

In the settings page of the WP-Satus.net you just select the Yourls.org option for URL shortener service and fill in your domain name as the API ID. If you have for example installed Yourls at http://www.sampleaddress.com/yourls-api.php, then you only fill in sampleaddress.com in the API ID field like in the picture below:

Now you will get short URLs with your own brand in the URL

You can read more about the WP-Status.net plugin here.

About the author
Andreas co-founded Xavier Media® in 1996 and has since been involved in all kinds of development, marketing and making money online.