• What Is It?
• It Does What, Exactly?
• Why Is This Better Than An Online Redirection Service?
• Why Is It Named "301tool"?
• Where Can I Get 301tool?
• What Are the Requirements to Install 301tool On My Web Server?
• Where Can I Get Support For 301tool If I Have Questions?
• Do I Have to Pay For 301tool?

301tool is a URL Redirection Web Application that is designed to shorten long and unwieldy URLs into smaller, more meaningful URLs.

This application provides similar functionality to online services such as TinyURL or shortURL, but can be used with and hosted on your own domain.

You can take a look at the online demo: Click Here

For example, say you have a news article that you would like to link to in a blog post, a tweet on twitter, in an IM or Facebook status, in an email, in a newsletter, or in an IRC topic. Most of those have character limits, so the URL would be too long for posting.

For those that don't have character limits, using a short URL can add context to the link, can be communicated verbally, and would look much cleaner.

So, here's an example. The external link you have could look something like this:

http://www.cnn.com/main/articles/2009/03/16/an-article-about-pandas/395081/#top

And can be changed to something like this with 301tool:

http://mydomain.com/external/panda

Honestly, it depends on what you're looking for. For the most part, services such as TinyURL are perfectly adequate for shortening URLs. Some benifits/features of 301tool:

• Easy to install
• Easy to configure and maintain
• Features an access log showing 404 errors so they can be corrected
• Add context for a long URL with a short keyword
• Use your own domain name, rather than the domain name of a 3rd party redirection service
• The ability to change the redirected URL after your short URL has been published--without needing to re-publish or re-distribute the existing short URL.

The name actually reveals part of how the application works. Essentially, when you click on the short URL link, it gets redirected to the long, external URL. The type of redirect that is used is called a 301 redirect. The number is a specific status code in the HTTP protocol that tells the browser what is happening.

So, since this is a tool used for making 301 redirects, we arrive at the name 301tool.

To download 301tool version 1.1.0, Click Here.

After downloading, take a look at the included readme file for instructions and FAQs.

You can also take a look at the online demo: Click Here

To purchase a commercial license, please visit the AJD Productions Store.

• Apache 1.x/2.x
• MySQL 4.x/5.0.x
• PHP 5.2.x
• IonCube Loader (Free Download)
• A mail transfer agent (usually included on linux platforms by default), such as qmail or Mercury
• Runs on both Windows and Linux platforms (LAMP or WAMP)

There is a dedicated support forum right here:

http://ajd-productions.com/forums

301tool is completely free for personal, non-profit, or classroom/educational purposes so long as the creator (Adam Deutschmann, owner of AJD Productions) is given credit for the original application and code.

If you are a business, sole proprietorship, or other commercial organization (this also includes academic institutions and government bodies), you are allowed to use 301tool for a 30-day evaluation period. After the 30-day evaluation period ends, you must either remove 301tool or purchase a valid commercial license from the AJD Productions Store.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to contact store[at]ajd-productions.com