7 Things People Don’t Tell You About URL Shorteners!

If you’ve been researching the benefits of using short URLs in your general and internet marketing, there are probably a few general points that stick out in your mind:

• Short URLs tend to increase click-through rates ... and therefore profit for your site.
• Short URLs are infinitely preferable when your marketing is in a format that requires re-typing the address (such as SMS marketing or print advertising).
• Short URLs can be vulnerable to spam links, since you can’t see exactly where the URL points.
• Short URLs contribute to the possibility of linkrot on the web, in case one or more of the shortening services stop functioning.

This leaves you with two fairly convincing arguments on either side of the fence. Unfortunately there is a lot more to the story than most sites tend to want to tell you! Today we are looking at the top 7 things that not many people realize about URL shorteners.

1. Many URL shortening services have a preview function that allows you to see what a page looks like, without actually clicking through to it. If users are worried about spam, they simply use the preview function to confirm that the site is legitimate.
2. It is best practice not to use short URLs as a permanent linking device. They are wonderful in certain circumstances, but shortening every URL on your site for all of your promotion is not the ideal long term solution. A website developer can work with you to create a longer-term solution.
3. There are plugins and scripts available that decode shortened URLs for users. Someone who is worried about the possibility of spam in short URLs may well have one of these scripts or plug-ins installed. However, a limited number of services are supported by these.
4. Bit.ly and tinyurl are not the only URL shortening services. There are doens of smaller ones, and some that offer very inventive features. These may include tracking and stats, the possibility of shortening URLs with your own domain, and so on.
5. It is believed that the lifespan of the average URL is around the same as that of a shortened URL. The major difference is that with shortened URLs there is the very small possibility of a heap of URLs suddenly becoming invalid all at once, whereas this happens gradually for ordinary URLs.
6. Businesses can sometimes avoid the need for using URL shortening services by careful URL design ... but when you have a content management system that automatically generates long URLs, this is near impossible. It is much easier to shorten as necessary, rather than redesign an entire site.
7. Some antivirus products will block shortened URLs en masse. If you don't want your viewers to be stopped from accessing your site, choose a service without known issues.