URL shortening services are Websites, which offer redirections from one of their pages with short URLs to your page (with a long URL). URL shortening services are great when you need to print URLs. I don’t like them on Websites / in Emails as I can’t see the target, but I don’t want to type so much when I get a URL in my real live.
These services should be used more often in my university. It’s ridiculous that all students have to note very long URLs in the first few days. It’s not a real problem, but using URL shorteners would be better.
I’ll describe some services in the following article.
bitly
Long URL: https://lists.ira.uni-karlsruhe.de/mailman/listinfo/swt1-vorlesung (66 characters)
Short URL: http://bit.ly/HKEKD0 (20 characters)
Custom URL: http://bit.ly/SWT-List (22 characters, but you need to sign up for free)
Bitly does not re-use old links (source).
You get additional information by adding a + sing at the end: http://bit.ly/HKEKD0+, http://bit.ly/SWT-List+
TinyURL
Long URL: https://lists.ira.uni-karlsruhe.de/mailman/listinfo/swt1-vorlesung (66 characters)
Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/87oscxb (26 characters)
Custom URL: http://tinyurl.com/SWT-List (27 characters)
Goo.gl
Long URL: https://lists.ira.uni-karlsruhe.de/mailman/listinfo/swt1-vorlesung (66 characters)
Short URL: http://goo.gl/z5cp0 (19 characters)
Custom URL: Not possible
This service is owned by Google.
Links do not expire and nobody can change them (source).
See also
- URL Toolbox: 90+ URL Shortening Services – if you wish to see some more
- Wikipedia: bitly, TinyURL
