In 2011, I needed an easy way to promote to one of my online projects on New York tourism to smartphone users and to do this, I needed to research how to create custom short URLs for a website.
Domain Name
My first task was to register (411ny.org) a shorter domain name then drop the following code into the .htaccess file in the root of the site.
# [ Custom Short URL ]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/?$ http://411newyork.org [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://bitly.com/$1 [R=301,NC]
# [ Custom Short URL ]
Bitly Pro Account
With the domain name registered, active, and loaded with the .htaccess file, it was time to register for a Bitly account so I can track stats and receive the API information to tie into my domain. Now, when a user types in 411ny.org/ZXMMS4 or http://411ny.org/1Q8pcfZ in the browser, they are redirected to this article and without having to pay enormous fees as what Amazon, Pepsi and news agencies would be paying.
