Jekyll URL Shortener

:scissors: :link: This is a template repository for making URL Shorteners with Jekyll and GitHub Pages. Create short URLs that can be easily shared, tweeted, or emailed to friends. Click Use this template to get started.

View the URL Shortener in action:

• https://hlaueriksson.github.io/jekyll-url-shortener/

Read a blog post about the URL Shortener:

• https://conductofcode.io/post/introducing-jekyll-url-shortener/

Table of Contents:

• Getting Started
  • Domain
  • Repository
  • Configuration
  • GitHub Pages
  • Links
• Built With
• Showcase
• Running Jekyll locally
• Customizations of the redirect template

Getting Started

Follow these steps to create your own URL Shortener:

1. Get a domain name
2. Configure the DNS for the domain
3. Click Use this template to create a repository
4. Edit the _config.yml file
5. Host on GitHub Pages
6. Create link pages

Domain

Get a (preferably short) domain name from your favorite registrar.

You probably want to use an apex domain for your URL Shortener.

Go to your DNS provider and setup the apex domain.

If you create DNS A records, point to the these GitHub IP addresses:

185.199.108.153
185.199.109.153
185.199.110.153
185.199.111.153

Repository

Creating a repository from this template:

1. Above the file list, click Use this template to create a repository from this template.
2. Select Create a new repository.

I prefer to use the domain name as the name for the repository when I host a site on GitHub Pages.

Take the opportunity to edit the Description and Website of the repository. Also consider to add topics to categorize your repository.

You probably want to rewrite the content of this README.md file.

Configuration

Edit the _config.yml file:

title: Jekyll URL Shortener
description: ✂️🔗 This is a template repository for making URL Shorteners with Jekyll and GitHub Pages. Create short URLs that can be easily shared, tweeted, or emailed to friends.
logo: /assets/img/logo.png
show_downloads: true
google_analytics:
theme: jekyll-theme-minimal

permalink: /:slug/

plugins:
  - jekyll-redirect-from

github: [metadata]

Change the title and description to something you like. Consider to use your own logo by replacing the /assets/img/logo.png image.

The show_downloads flag indicates whether to provide downloads links for the code in the repository on the site.

Set the google_analytics tracking code if you are interested in the website traffic.

Read more about the theme at https://github.com/pages-themes/minimal

The global permalink for pages is set to /:slug/.

Permalinks are the output path for your pages, posts, or collections. They allow you to structure the directories of your source code different from the directories in your output.

Slugified title from the document’s filename (any character except numbers and letters is replaced as hyphen). May be overridden via the document’s slug front matter.

Read more about permalinks at https://jekyllrb.com/docs/permalinks/

It is the jekyll-redirect-from plugin that does the redirecting from the short link to the target page.

Sometimes, you may want to redirect a site page to a totally different website.

Read more about the plugin at https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-redirect-from

You can find more useful plugins to add at https://pages.github.com/versions/

GitHub Pages

Go to the GitHub Pages settings for the repo: /settings/pages

Configure the build and deployment to publish from a branch.

Set the Source to:

• Deploy from a branch

Set the Branch to:

• main

and the folder to:

• / (root)

Configure a custom domain for the GitHub Pages site.

Enter your domain name under Custom domain and click Save.

This will create a CNAME file in the repo:

example.com

Custom domains are stored in a CNAME file in the root of your repository. You can add or update your custom domain through your repository settings. You can also edit the file directly to update your custom domain.

Make sure the Enforce HTTPS checkbox is ticked to secure the GitHub Pages site.

HTTPS provides a layer of encryption that prevents others from snooping on or tampering with traffic to your site. When HTTPS is enforced, your site will only be served over HTTPS.

Read more about GitHub Pages at https://pages.github.com

Links

Create a new short link by creating a page.

Create the file in the root of the repository.

This repository has one example.

repo.md:

---
title: Jekyll URL Shortener
redirect_to: https://github.com/hlaueriksson/jekyll-url-shortener
---

This results in:

• "Short" link: https://hlaueriksson.github.io/jekyll-url-shortener/repo/
• Target page: https://github.com/hlaueriksson/jekyll-url-shortener
• (Ironically the short link is 5 characters longer than the target page URL)

The title could be used to describe the target page. Consider to provide the exact title of the target page.

The redirect_to is the URL to the target page. This is the only front matter that is mandatory to make the short link work.

The file can have a .md (Markdown) or .html extension.

By default, the file name will be the slug of the short link. This behavior is configured in _config.yml.

If you want to use a different slug, set the permalink variable:

permalink: /something/

Take the opportunity to get a real short slug by using emojis:

permalink: /😻/

Find appropriate emojis to copy from https://emojipedia.org/

Built With

• Jekyll: https://jekyllrb.com
• jekyll-theme-minimal: https://github.com/pages-themes/minimal
• jekyll-redirect-from: https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-redirect-from
• GitHub Pages: https://pages.github.com

Showcase

Running Jekyll locally

Run:

bundle exec jekyll serve

Browse:

• http://localhost:4000

Documentation:

• https://docs.github.com/en/pages/setting-up-a-github-pages-site-with-jekyll/testing-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll

Customizations of the redirect template

The redirect template has been customized in this repository.

_layouts/redirect.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
  {% if site.google_analytics %}
  <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id={{ site.google_analytics }}"></script>
  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
    gtag('js', new Date());
    gtag('config', '{{ site.google_analytics }}');
  </script>
  {% endif %}
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Redirecting&hellip;</title>
  <link rel="canonical" href="{{ page.redirect.to }}">
  <script>location="{{ page.redirect.to }}"</script>
  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url={{ page.redirect.to }}">
  <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
  <h1>Redirecting&hellip;</h1>
  <a href="{{ page.redirect.to }}">Click here if you are not redirected.</a>
</html>

The Google Analytics script is added at the top of the HTML.

If the google_analytics tracking code is specified in _config.yml, then the script is rendered in the redirect template.

Documentation:

• https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-redirect-from#customizing-the-redirect-template