🔗 URL Shortener with User Auth

A secure, efficient URL Shortening service built using Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and EJS. Supports user authentication, individual URL tracking, and real-time analytics.

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🚀 Features

• ✅ User Authentication (Sign up & Login)
• 🔐 Only logged-in users can shorten URLs
• ✂️ Generate short URLs from long links
• 🔁 Redirect using short links
• 📈 Click tracking with timestamps (basic analytics)
• 📋 User-specific dashboard (view only your own shortened URLs)
• 🧼 Clean and modular code structure with EJS frontend

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• ⚙️ Node.js
• 🚀 Express.js
• 🧠 MongoDB + Mongoose
• ✏️ EJS (templating engine)
• 🧩 shortid (for generating short links)
• 🍪 cookie-parser (for managing sessions)

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📁 Project Structure

url-shortener/
├── controllers/
│   ├── url.js          # Logic for URL creation and analytics
│   └── user.js         # Logic for signup & login
├── models/
│   ├── url.js          # URL schema
│   └── user.js         # User schema
├── routes/
│   ├── url.js          # Routes for URL actions
│   ├── user.js         # Routes for signup/login
│   └── staticroute.js  # Views like home, login, signup
├── middlewares/
│   └── auth.js         # Auth protection middleware
├── service/
│   └── auth.js         # Simple in-memory session logic
├── views/
│   ├── home.ejs        # Main dashboard
│   ├── login.ejs       # Login page
│   └── signup.ejs      # Signup page
├── connect.js          # MongoDB connection
├── index.js            # Main Express server
└── README.md           # You're here!

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⚙️ Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Charul192/UrlShortner.git
cd UrlShortner

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Start MongoDB locally

In the index.js file, you'll find this line:

connectToMongoDB("<your-host>:<port>/<your-database-name>").then(() => console.log("MongoDB connected"));

Replace it with your own MongoDB connection string.

4. Start the server

nodemon index.js

Server runs at: http://localhost:8001

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🧪 API Endpoints

🔐 User

✅ POST /user

Register a new user Body:

{
  "name": "John Doe",
  "email": "john@example.com",
  "password": "123456"
}

🔓 POST /user/login

Login existing user Body:

{
  "email": "john@example.com",
  "password": "123456"
}

✂️ URL

📌 POST /url

Create a short URL (only for logged-in users) Body:

{
  "url": "https://example.com"
}

Response:

{
  "id": "short123"
}

🔁 GET /:shortId

Redirects to the original URL Example: http://localhost:8001/abc123 → https://www.example.com

📊 GET /url/analytics/:shortId

Returns number of visits and timestamp logs Example:

{
  "totalClicks": 2,
  "analytics": [
    { "timestamp": 1719838810201 },
    { "timestamp": 1719838855509 }
  ]
}

🔐 Authentication & Authorization

• Routes under /url are protected using middleware
• Users can only view their own shortened URLs on the dashboard
• Uses basic cookie-based sessions

📸 Screenshot

🔗 Simple UI to generate and view short URLs
📊 Click count tracking displayed in a clean table layout

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💡 Future Scope

• 🔁 Expiry support for short links
• 📊 Graphical analytics (charts for visits)
• 📸 QR code generation
• 📬 Email verification
• 🔐 Password hashing (currently passwords are stored as plain text)

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👩‍💻 Author

• Made with ❤️ by Charul192
• Feel free to fork, clone, or contribute!