PHP URL Shortener App

Live stream set for 2025-12-17 at 14:00:00 Eastern

Ask questions in the live chat about any programming or lifestyle topic.

This livestream will be on YouTube or you can watch below.

Build a Simple URL Shortener Using PHP and MariaDB

In this tutorial, we will build a simple URL shortener using PHP and MariaDB. The application will allow users to generate short URLs, view a list of previously created URLs, and serve redirects when the short URLs are accessed. We will use HTML5 and the Fetch API for a modern, interactive interface.

Step 1: Database Setup

Create a MariaDB table to store original and short URLs.

CREATE TABLE urls (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    original_url VARCHAR(2083) NOT NULL,
    short_code VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
    created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

Step 2: HTML Form for Shortening URLs

<form id="urlForm">
  <input type="url" id="originalUrl" placeholder="Enter URL" required>
  <button type="submit">Generate Short URL</button>
</form>

<ul id="urlList">
  <!-- Short URLs will be listed here -->
</ul>

Step 3: JavaScript with Fetch API

document.getElementById('urlForm').addEventListener('submit', async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    const originalUrl = document.getElementById('originalUrl').value;

    const response = await fetch('shorten.php', {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
        body: JSON.stringify({url: originalUrl})
    });

    const data = await response.json();
    if (data.shortUrl) {
        const li = document.createElement('li');
        li.innerHTML = `<a href="${data.shortUrl}" target="_blank">${data.shortUrl}</a>`;
        document.getElementById('urlList').appendChild(li);
    }
});

Step 4: PHP Backend for Shortening and Redirects

File: shorten.php

// shorten.php
header('Content-Type: application/json');
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'), true);

$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test', 'username', 'password');

function generateShortCode($length = 6) {
    return substr(str_shuffle('0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'), 0, $length);
}

$originalUrl = filter_var($data['url'], FILTER_SANITIZE_URL);
$shortCode = generateShortCode();

$stmt = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO urls (original_url, short_code) VALUES (?, ?)');
$stmt->execute([$originalUrl, $shortCode]);

$shortUrl = 'https://yourdomain.com/r.php?c=' . $shortCode;

echo json_encode(['shortUrl' => $shortUrl]);

File: r.php

// r.php
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test', 'username', 'password');
$code = $_GET['c'];

$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT original_url FROM urls WHERE short_code = ?');
$stmt->execute([$code]);
$url = $stmt->fetchColumn();

if ($url) {
    header('Location: ' . $url);
    exit;
} else {
    echo 'URL not found';
}