Thanks to Twitter being the raging buzzword of 2009, URL shorteners have found their place on the Internet. TinyURL, memURL, ShortURL, bit.ly, Doiop, Snurl , tr.im, is.gd. (Whole long list of them here.)
As users struggle to share a link in 140 characters, URL shorteners certainly help alot with long URLs because every.character.counts.
Tracking
Bit.ly’s tracking function provides basic analytics, allowing you to see the other people who have shortened the same URL, what they are saying, how many people have clicked, etc.
Link Preview… but who would use this all the time?
You can preview on TinyURL what link you will be redirected to, by typing ‘preview’ at the front of the hyperlink.
E.G. http://tinyurl.com/yhkfkgh could be retyped as http://preview.tinyurl.com/yhkfkgh
Disguise for malicious scams and spams
Thing is, you never really know where you would be headed to. Not only the technically-unsavvy ones would suspect it is a virus, really. With a habit of hovering all links I click, I am hesitant about clicking shortened URLs, no matter how convincing they may look. (Think RickRoll!) And no, I’m definitely not clicking on anything that says “This is cool!! Check it out… ”
Does no good for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) (I’m not even mentioning the geeky things like DNS and servers.)
With all path data and permalinks removed… how is it any beneficial to SEO?
Well, unless you tell me that… Google algorithms are now so smart they’d know what yhkfkgh means.
Beware of Murphy’s Law
You are totally reliant on the service. If the service goes down, most likely your URL would be gone too. On June 15th 2009, Cli.gs got hacked, redirecting shortened URLs to a specific allocated site. If anything can go wrong, it will.
My all-time issue with URL shorteners is not being able to pre-empt users on the site they are about to enter. To solve this nasty issue, Vincent Gable has suggested that Twitter allow link embedding, e.g. so people write “this is my website“, not “this is my website: http://vgable.com “.
Tell me what you think – do we really need to use URL shorteners outside Twitter?
P.S. I just had to post these parodies: HugeURL and Woofer FTW.
Hop over to read more about URL shorteners:
- SEOmoz – Useful reviews on pros & cons of various providers
- Joshua Schachter on TinyURL
About the AuthorAmelia Chen has a penchant for all things social media, public relations, marketing and design. Marketing executive and a lifelong student. Girl geek.
