The subject technology provides an in-place encoding of a network identifier that compresses the network identifier without mapping the network identifier to a another server or service, such as URL shortening service. The network identifier may be compressed using segmented encoding operations that segment the network identifier, and encode the characters of the network identifier using a first set of encoding operations for a first portion of the network identifier and a second set of encoding operations for a second portion of the network identifier. Template encoding may also be provided for network identifiers that conform to a predefined template format.