GoTinyUrls – URL Shortener with Live Analytics

GoTinyUrls is a full-featured URL shortener built with a modern microservices architecture. It provides fast and reliable URL shortening, real-time analytics, and scalable performance optimizations using Redis, BullMQ, and MongoDB.

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Features

🔗 URL Management

• Custom Aliases: Create personalized short URLs
• Password-Protected Links: Restrict access with user-defined passwords
• Expiry Dates: Time-limited short URLs for temporary sharing
• QR Code Generation: Automatic QR codes for every shortened link
• Bulk Operations: Queue-based batch URL processing for real time analytics

👤 User Authentication

• Secure JWT-based authentication
• Password hashing with bcryptjs
• Protected frontend routes with middleware
• User dashboard to manage URLs, analytics, and settings

📊 Advanced Analytics

• Real-time click tracking
• Geographic analytics powered by IPinfo
• Time-based insights (daily, weekly, monthly trends)
• Interactive charts with Recharts
• 3D globe visualization for geographic traffic patterns

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Tech Stack

Frontend

• React with Vite
• Redux Toolkit for state management
• Tailwind CSS + Radix UI / shadcn UI for responsive, accessible UI
• Recharts for interactive data visualization
• Globe.gl for geographic analytics

Backend

• Node.js + Express.js server
• MongoDB Atlas with Mongoose ODM
• Redis (Upstash) for caching and unique ID generation
• BullMQ for background job processing
• JWT authentication and bcryptjs password hashing
• QRCode generation for shortened URLs
• Deployment: Backend deployed on Render

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System Architecture

• Microservices separation:
  • Backend Service (API, authentication, URL ops)
  • Analytics Service (click + geo tracking)
  • Shared Module (models + config)
• Performance optimizations:
  • Redis caching (reduced latency by ~50%)
  • Base62 counter-based URL generation (14M+ unique URLs without collisions)
  • BullMQ-powered queue for analytics and batch processing
  • API rate limiting to prevent abuse

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Project Structure

/frontend
  ├── components/        # Reusable UI components
  ├── pages/             # Route-based pages (Home, Dashboard, Auth)
  ├── store/             # Redux Toolkit slices
  ├── utils/             # Frontend helpers

/backend
  ├── controllers/       # Business logic (URLs, Auth, Redirects)
  ├── routes/            # Express routes & middleware
  ├── utils/             # Token, encoding, Redis helpers
  ├── middleware/        # Auth & validation middleware

/shared
  ├── models/            # MongoDB schemas (User, Url, Analytics)
  ├── config/            # DB + Redis configurations

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Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js (>=18)
• MongoDB
• Redis (Upstash or local)

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/your-username/gotinyurls.git
   cd gotinyurls

2. Install dependencies:

   cd frontend && npm install
   cd ../backend && npm install

3. Setup environment variables:

   • Create .env files for frontend and backend services.
   • Add variables like MONGO_URI, REDIS_URL, JWT_SECRET, etc.

4. Run development servers:

   # In /frontend
   npm run dev
   
   # In /backend
   npm run dev
   

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Deployment

• Frontend: Deployed on Netlify
• Backend: Deployed on Render
• Database: MongoDB Atlas
• Caching/Queues: Upstash Redis

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Key Highlights

• QR code support for easy sharing
• Password-protected short URLs for private access
• Handles high throughput with Redis-backed counter system
• Reduced redirect latency by ~50% through caching + queues
• Real-time day-wise and region-wise analytics
• Built with enterprise-level architecture for scalability and reliability

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