3 of the Best: URL Shorteners

Sometimes you want to share a link to something on Twitter but the link is ridiculously long, and it's chewing up all your characters to tweet with.  Or maybe the link is just Ugly with a capital U.  What's a girl (or a guy for that matter!) to do?  Well, that is where URL Shorteners come in.  A URL Shortener is  a handy tool that reduces the number of characters your URL uses, while still sending the clickee to the right page.  These generally work by way of a redirect from the short domain name to the webpage that has the longer URL.

No doubt you will have encountered one or two of these URL Shorteners along the way.  But which one should you use?  Well, luckily for us there are quite a few of them, but here I will cover 3 of the more popular and reliable ones for business use.

goo.gl

This is the one I most frequently use.  It's Google's own URL Shortener and what I like about it is that it gives you a page preview so you can double check your page.  It's easy to use, easy to copy the new link.  It also keeps a list of your URLs and can tell you what was clicked and how often too.  So you get a bit of quick analytics as well.

TinyURL

I have had a play with Tiny URL and have been impressed with the few extra features they have.  For example, you can shorten your URL, but you also have the ability to customise what it will say.  So instead of a nonsensical code, you can have words if you like.  You can also do a preview URL and it tells you what the character count is for the old link and the new one.

Bitly

This is another one I haven't had a big play with.  However, it's a popular one and definitely in the top 3 in use.  You can use this service for free, without signing up.  But signing up does get you some statistics for analysis.  There are also paid services there including getting your own custom URL, though unless you work for a major brand the pricing may be out of reach for many businesses.

Most URL Shorteners are free and easy to use.  With all URL Shorteners you should be aware that any page deemed "spammy" or illegal will be removed from their service.  They will all have a disclaimer or a terms of use policy, so have a read and happy shortening!


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