Design and Implementation of Linkify: A Secure Full-Stack URL Shortening System with Real-Time Analytics

This research presents the design and development of Linkify, an enterprise-ready full-stack web application for URL shortening with integrated traffic analytics. The study explores whether a modular architectural approach combining Spring Boot backend with React frontend and PostgreSQL persistence layer can achieve improved data consistency and reduced response latency compared to conventional implementations. The system leverages Base62 encoding to generate collision-resistant short identifiers and employs JSON Web Token (JWT) authentication to secure analytics access. Performance evaluation across one hundred test cases revealed an average redirect latency of 182 milliseconds with standard deviation of 15 milliseconds. Authentication testing confirmed complete rejection of unauthorized requests across five hundred simulated attacks. Zero identifier collisions occurred during generation of ten thousand unique short codes. The analytics subsystem demonstrated complete accuracy in recording visitor information including access patterns and device classifications. This work establishes a viable framework for organizations seeking self-hosted link management with enhanced privacy controls and comprehensive usage monitoring capabilities.