January 9th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I was going to research/compile a list of URL shortening services but Mashable beat me to it today. Worked out for the best as it saved me a lot of time.
If you don’t know what a URL shortening service is …
It’s a service that minimizes a long address, creating a shorter URL address that gets forwarded to the original link.
So from a long URL like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1425103804/ref=s9_asin_image_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s
=center-1&pf_rd_r=1G29T17YTB01SHPCZ7EG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=265623401&pf_rd_i=507846
turns into this:
http://snurl.com/1×13h
and both links are equivalent and go to the same location.
When is it useful?
- Email messages
Sometimes long URL links in email messages get cut off. Using this allows you to preserve the original long link location.
- When using micro blogging services like Twitter or Jaiku where you are limited to 140 characters.
- SMS text messaging or Instant Messaging a link to someone… you won’t need to type in (or remember) the whole link.
As you can see Mashable has an exhaustive list of 90+ free services. I use snurl.com because it has the ability to track how many people has clicked on the shortened link, to see a history of links you’ve made, the ability to manage/modify the link you’ve made and to customize the shortened URL with private keys/ nicknames. The handy java bookmarklet that you can drag to your browser toolbar lets you to quickly shorten the long URL and copy it with one click. It also has interchangeable aliases of snipr.com and snipurl.com to choose from if you don’t like the snurl.com shortened domain name.
As of date, many of the new services that have sprung up on the web offer the same functionality too (I’ve stuck to this one because it has served me well). It was also one of the first ones I encountered and came highly recommended by some of my friends.
Other well known shortening services include
TinyURL (official service of choice used by Twitter)
Firefox users can download an addon here.
URLtea
Lets you add a tag in the shortened URL.
Metamark*
URLSplit
Split a single URL among multiple websites so it goes to each one randomly. (Not sure why you would want to do that unless you are advertising something)
Shorturl
Lets you create a short url as a subdomain i.e. http://yourname.shorturl.com. Choice of 20+ subdomains. Provides traffic reports and stats.
Notlong
This one has the ability to password protect your short URL. Provides traffic stats and subdomain URLs.
*NOTE: Besides Metamark (where the links expire after 5 years), all the URL services above promise to hold your shortened links indefinitely.
It is also easy enough to host/start a URL service on your own domain with the scripts:
Phurl (Free)
Bring2.us (Free)
Brokenscript (Free)
XYZ Short URL (Script cost $29)
GentleURL (Script cost $29)
Negatives with using these services
If you are hosting your own URL service is the problem of spam and the potential for it to be abused. I’ve yet to see the scripts provided that tackle that problem. An extreme scenario will see your domain being banned by ISPs if it is associated with spammers. My advice is that if you are installing the scripts, that you use it for your personal use only. This is unless you want to further customize the scripts to catch those pesky spammers/ spam bots and not allow splogs.
Will it be gone tomorrow? The other problem with using the free services on the web is that you never know how long the service provider going to last. Therefore, it’ll be pretty risky if you are ultra dependent on all your shortened links or if you use it for monetary purposes. With how I use it, I really won’t care if I lose the shortened URL links I’ve accumulated. I normally use it as a temporary reference link in Twitter or in an email i.e. one that probably be clicked on once or twice and then discarded.
One has to be wary with clicking on these shortened URLs too, especially if the link originates from a source you aren’t familiar with. I have two general rules when using shortened URLs
- I refrain from clicking on shortened links that come from people I don’t know.
- When I use shortened links in an email message or an IM, I always leave a little description on what the URL links to.
Tip Update: Use linknark to find out what the shortened URL is before you click it (thanks MC)
On a lighter note, if you ever want to make your URL (insanely) long … use HugeURL.
Overall, for personal usage, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. URL shortening services are very useful web tools and something you shouldn’t do without. For business users, you may want to download a script, install it on your domain and further customize it to prevent spam or unwanted abuse.
4 Responses to “Handy URL shortening services”
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MC said: @ 11:53 pm
January 9th, 2008
I think you should also mention LinkNark which will reveal what a shortened URL is before you click it.
http://www.linknark.com/
The Foo said: @ 1:04 am
January 10th, 2008
@MC
thanks for the link. it’ll definitely come in useful sometime. i’ve updated the post to include it.
Ask Bjørn Hansen said: @ 9:41 am
January 10th, 2008
Hi The Foo,
Metamark keeps the URLs around forever too, as long as they are in use (even if just very very occasionally).
The 5 year thing is really because we’re committed to keep the service around for a Very Long Time and with a decade long timeframe then it’s slightly nuts not to be able to eventually purge old data (we haven’t purged anything yet, even if the site has been up for more than 5 years).
- ask
Joaquin said: @ 8:38 pm
February 6th, 2008
I’ve just released http://piurl.com. Your opinions will be welcome :)