Link Shortening Service - Review - WebDeveloper.com Forums

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Link Shortening Service - Review

Gilbert09

Heya guys, I've created a new link shortening service (Yeah I know, there are hundreds of others), it's still in development and I've tried to keep it as simple and clean as possible, I've only used a clear and crisp font, and a fresh colour scheme. I'm currently developing a account/dashboard feature so that you can keep track of links and so on. It's based on a open API which I've designed, this uses ASP and C# as the backend in collaboration with both a MS SQL database and a Redis key-value database. I've choose Redis because it has a auto expire feature which is great for keeping track of API rate limiting, someone makes a request, it adds them to the database and it auto expires within a hour and therefore there limit has in theory reset.

The site is www.linkk.co

What are your thoughts on it? And what sort of features would you want added in the future? Anything that you want to see that other link shortening services don't provide?

Thanks!

Hanasons

Yes, it is good, easy to use as it opens like a search engine.

David_B

The site seems simple enough, nice and clean--perhaps too clean.

Before I check out a service, I like to see an "About" link, so I can learn more about the people and company offering the service. Where is the company located? Does it look like it will be around long-term? Who are the people behind it? etc. At the moment, that page has NO information.

Having the ability to create accounts is always nice. That way, users can log into their accounts and maintain their links. I don't see any way of doing that presently. If my favorite forums change from being websiteA.com/forums to forums.websiteA.com, how can I update the alias that was created?

It is also nice to be able to name the shortened URL, to give it an intuitive name.
Google offers their own shortening service (goo.gl) but it doesn't offer this feature either. It does a nice job of shortening URLs, but they are not human friendly; they take the form goo.gl/asddas$3hf which is meaningless. I'd like the ability to name my own slug, for example, goo.gl/mygpluspage
(Unfortunately, Google doesn't offer vanity URLs to the average Google Plus user; users must either use a big long ugly URL, or they have to use a third-party URL shortening service like gplus.to.)

In fact, anybody with a WordPress blog has the ability to have a URL-shortening service too, based on their own domain, with the Pretty Link plugin. And they get to name the slugs, which is sweet.

You are off to a good start. Lots of work ahead of you.

fourtonfish

First of all, I personally find the site too dark. The simplicity is great - actually, I don't even think it's necessary to add more functionality (accounts, custom URLs etc) - as you acknowledge yourself, there are hundreds of URL shorteners out there already. Linkk.co could simply be for those who just want to quickly generate a short URL without the need to customize anything. Which brings me to the fact that the site has absolutely no optimization for mobile.

Personally I would switch the background and font colors, make sure the site looks good on the phone (maybe even a little Android app that would accompany the website?) and add a link to a page with information about the company and most importantly description of the service: things like link expiration, whether there are any limitations (can't link to certain kind of sites, showing ads before a linked page is opened etc etc).

If you do want to go with your plans of creating the account/dashboard feature, I would just stick to the simplicity of your landing page.

All in all, as David_B said: You are off to a good start

nostronzo

Hi Gilbert,

Well done!

It is and does exactly what it says on the tin!

It is complete.

I would leave it as it is and move to my next project.

MobiDev

Hi!
I also find it too dark. And how are you going to monetize it? Just wondering.