When—and How—to Compress URLs

Posted August 29, 2008 | Laura Christianson

Have you ever received an email with a super-long link in it—a link so long it was unclickable? I certainly have.

Enter the amazing URL shrinker, a handy tool that shortens lengthy URLs (web addresses) to 25 or so characters.

There are several good uses for URL shinkers:

  • E-newsletters: many services require you to write out the entire URL to sites you’re linking to. Compress the URL, and you’ve got a nice, clean-looking address that doesn’t scare people away.
  • Affiliate links: These links are usually dozens of characters long, and you may want to disguise the fact that you’re sending people to your affiliate.
  • Micro-blogging. Twitter allows 140 characters per tweet. Since most tweeters refer their followers to new blog posts, it makes sense to compress links to posts.

The downside to URL shrinkers is that they replace the name of the Web site with their own company name. For example, here’s a link to one of our articles that we shrank for Twitter, using TinyURL.com:

Original (76 characters):

  • https://bloggingbistro.com/how-to-get-readers-to-retweet-your-blog-posts/

TinyURL version of the same link (25 characters):

  • http://tinyurl.com/c42g72

So much for branding your own site! So much for positioning the link high on search engines. But if you can live with that, using tools that compress addresses is handy.

Here are 5 good services. They’re free, and you do not have to register:

  1. TinyURL.com – My favorite. I’ve got this site bookmarked on my startup screen, so whenever I need to shrink a URL, I simply highlight the URL I want to shorten, click the TinyURL.com bookmark, and it instantly shrinks it.
  2. is.gd – Also works great – I plan to use this service more often.
  3. urlShort – A no-brainer to use.
  4. bit.ly – User-friendly and easy to read
  5. SNIPURL.com – I used to use this service a lot, but it’s not as user-friendly anymore, so I’ve defected to TinyURL.

Now you try it:

  1. Click this post’s headline to get its permanent URL.
  2. Choose a service from the list and shrink the URL.
  3. Write your own blog entry, linking your readers to this post using the compressed URL.
  4. Let us know which service you like best.
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15 responses to “When—and How—to Compress URLs”

  1. Matt says:

    Nice post, especially on the points of when to use a shortened URL. Of course, it’s always best, when possible, to use the full URL but that’s not always the case, especially on social networks like Twitter. Thanks for featuring urlShort, we’re honored to be listed among the greats like bit.ly and TinyURL. 🙂

  2. Matt says:

    Nice post, especially on the points of when to use a shortened URL. Of course, it’s always best, when possible, to use the full URL but that’s not always the case, especially on social networks like Twitter. Thanks for featuring urlShort, we’re honored to be listed among the greats like bit.ly and TinyURL. 🙂

  3. Matt says:

    Nice post, especially on the points of when to use a shortened URL. Of course, it’s always best, when possible, to use the full URL but that’s not always the case, especially on social networks like Twitter. Thanks for featuring urlShort, we’re honored to be listed among the greats like bit.ly and TinyURL. 🙂

  4. Matt says:

    Nice post, especially on the points of when to use a shortened URL. Of course, it’s always best, when possible, to use the full URL but that’s not always the case, especially on social networks like Twitter. Thanks for featuring urlShort, we’re honored to be listed among the greats like bit.ly and TinyURL. 🙂

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  9. kiran says:

    Great, thanks for the post.
    I started using bitly

  10. kiran says:

    Great, thanks for the post.
    I started using bitly

  11. I am using bit.ly all the time now, too, and I really like it. When you sign up for an account, they track analytics for each link you shorten, which is nice for tracking clickthroughs.

  12. I am using bit.ly all the time now, too, and I really like it. When you sign up for an account, they track analytics for each link you shorten, which is nice for tracking clickthroughs.

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