What to Look for in a URL Shortener

Affiliate marketers and ezine publishers have been using URL shortening tools for more than a decade.  They can cloak affiliate links to prevent commission hijacking or affiliate bypassing.  Shortened URL’s also prevent broken links in e-mail from line character limits.  With the advent of character-limited social media, they’ve taken on a new role of lowering the character count.

What to Look For

Tools – URL shorteners sometimes come with invaluable tracking, and social media management tools.  These tools allow you to measure the effectiveness of your outbound messages based on analytics, to optimize your reach and measure the success of your marketing.  Social media tools will save time when distributing links to your content or other links across several networks.

Compatibility – If you’re using a tracking client like TweetDeck, you’ll probably want to use a URL shortener that is supported.

Customization – Some services offer customization of your shortened URL, allowing you to incorporate your business name or whatever you like into your link. It may take some time to find one that isn’t taken, however, especially with the more popular services.  If you’re able to add your brand in there somewhere, it will offer some reassurance for those who don’t like to click blind. If you have a WordPress blog, you can automatically create shortened links using your own domain name with a 301 redirect using a plugin.

URL Length – They’re all quite short, but some shorten links more than others.  Ow.ly may be preferred over TinyURL.com if every character counts, for example.

Reliability – One of the most important qualities you should look for in a URL shortener is reliability.  You don’t want to use a service that isn’t well established or your links may break in the future if the service disappears.  For the same reason, be wary of blog plugins that may be discontinued or fail to update to the latest versions of your website management software. It’s important that the service experience minimal downtime as well.

Redirect – Permanent redirect (301) will tell the search engines the URL has permanently moved to the full length URL you’ve shortened from.  This is important when using a URL shortener for links on your website so you are credited for the traffic.

Limitations – You’ll find the occasional glitch with some URL shorteners if you’re using them for affiliate links or links containing non-alpha/numeric characters. The links may be sent to the site homepage, be broken or outright blocked.  Bit.ly, Ow.ly (HootSuite) and Goo.gl may break affiliate links, for example, especially through Clickbank.  Some services may also be flagged by anti-spam software.  It’s always a good idea to click on your links to test them.

Random bloopers – I once saw a shortened URL on Facebook in which the random characters spelled a word that may be considered offensive.  The comments made it clear that I wasn’t the only one who noticed.  Take a good look before posting your new link.

Some Popular (Free) URL Shortening Tools

Clicky.me – Offers a free URL shortening service with its free Clicky Web Analytics services, which requires that you sign up for an account. It will also provide website analytics with installation.

Su.pr – Available through StumbleUpon with your free account.  It offers a basic social media distribution tool and analytics as well as a URL shortener.  The link from the shortened URL opens in StumbleUpon’s bar frame.

Bit.ly – Includes tracking tools such as clicks, referrals and location.  You can save, search, and organize all your links, making them public or private.  Not recommended for affiliate links.

Goo.gl – Google’s URL shortener offers some tracking and all analytics are public.  Not recommended for affiliate links.

TinyURL – If you just want to quickly shorten a URL without tracking or social media distribution, TinyURL has been a reliable tool for many years.

Is.gd – Another quicky shortener.

Polite Canadian Business NotePolite Canadian Note:  Some companies offer these services as part of a bigger revenue stream.  Others rely on advertising and donations so if you use their services, please remember to support them when you can.

What is your favorite URL shortener? Please tell us why you prefer it.

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Digital Business & Marketing Manager at Online Business Canada | Website | + posts

Melody McKinnon is an internet entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in a wide range of online business models, backed by a formal business education and enhanced by training and mentorship. She has owned or managed both educational and ecommerce websites. Her book, 7 Recession Proof Online Businesses to Start From Home, is available from all major ebook retailers.

Melody has worked with many businesses & brands in a multitude of capacities. She can often be found on CanadianDigitalMedia.com, CanadiansInternet.com, CanadianFamily.net, and AllNaturalPetCare.com, as well as other quality digital publications. Her content has earned reference links from highly-respected websites, magazines and university textbooks.

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T2M Team

Please include our product T2M URL Shortener (Canadian Startup project) in your list.
Thanks

Maribeth

Great guidance! There doesn’t seem to be as much need for shorteners anymore but they’ll probably always be used for some stuff.

Lester Fontaine

Thanks for the reminder to donate or click on sponsors. Sometimes people forget about the time and effort involved in the internet.

Dylan

I’ve used tinyurl for a long time but I’ve been using ow.ly more recently so I can gather up some metrics for clients.

Gwendellyn

Great url resources. There’s so many to choose from and I always have this nightmare of one of them shutting down and all of my links go dead.

Merle

Now that’s useful info, thanks.