4 ms·

What is the use of Url shortners?

4 points by panchpunt 15y ago

I want to understand the significance of Url shortning websites and short url besides their use in micro-blogging sites and advertising/campaigning.

lukeqsee 15y ago
1. Allow companies to scan content and verify it is safe. 2. Allow companies/people to "brand" links (I guess this is advertising, to an extent).
- panchpunt 15y ago
  You may be right. But I'm not quite getting you. How bit.ly or http://bit.ly/dfMsd http://bit.ly/dfMsd will allow companies to scan content or brand links
  - Thomaschaaf 15y ago
    Just add the + at the end to see stats: http://bit.ly/dfMsd+ http://bit.ly/dfMsd+
jesstaa 15y ago
url shortener are useful for any time you need to send a link in text form. Most sites are terrible at making good urls, and tend to make them huge and complicated. URL shortener help with that. url shorteners are also fairly bad for the web and should be avoided in all cases where you have another option.
gcb 15y ago
goatse
sim0n 15y ago
When services like Twitter limit your messages to 140 characters, you don't want to waste 50 characters on a long URL (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2547123 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2547123) when instead you could create a short(er) 10 character URL instead using a service like bit.ly, etc.
endergen 15y ago
The biggest benefit is that you can track how many people clicked on a link. That way users know which share links were popular. And for URL shortening sites themselves they get even better analytics where they get in real time all the popular shared links.
Mz 15y ago
The use I am familiar with: If you post a very long URL in an email and send it to a group, it often will not work for the receivers because it is broken up onto two lines. Lots of people aren't web-savvy enough copy and paste both pieces and for those who are that savvy it's a hug nuisance. So a URL shortener makes it much more likely that people will go read whatever you posted by removing those issues. I shared a URL shortening service with someone who routinely posted articles to a list we both belonged to and she was thrilled to pieces and has used it consistently ever since.

4 points by panchpunt 15y ago

I want to understand the significance of Url shortning websites and short url besides their use in micro-blogging sites and advertising/campaigning.

lukeqsee 15y ago

1. Allow companies to scan content and verify it is safe. 2. Allow companies/people to "brand" links (I guess this is advertising, to an extent).

panchpunt 15y ago
You may be right. But I'm not quite getting you. How bit.ly or http://bit.ly/dfMsd http://bit.ly/dfMsd will allow companies to scan content or brand links
- Thomaschaaf 15y ago
  Just add the + at the end to see stats: http://bit.ly/dfMsd+ http://bit.ly/dfMsd+

jesstaa 15y ago

url shortener are useful for any time you need to send a link in text form. Most sites are terrible at making good urls, and tend to make them huge and complicated. URL shortener help with that. url shorteners are also fairly bad for the web and should be avoided in all cases where you have another option.

gcb 15y ago

goatse

sim0n 15y ago

When services like Twitter limit your messages to 140 characters, you don't want to waste 50 characters on a long URL (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2547123 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2547123) when instead you could create a short(er) 10 character URL instead using a service like bit.ly, etc.

endergen 15y ago

The biggest benefit is that you can track how many people clicked on a link. That way users know which share links were popular. And for URL shortening sites themselves they get even better analytics where they get in real time all the popular shared links.

Mz 15y ago

The use I am familiar with: If you post a very long URL in an email and send it to a group, it often will not work for the receivers because it is broken up onto two lines. Lots of people aren't web-savvy enough copy and paste both pieces and for those who are that savvy it's a hug nuisance. So a URL shortener makes it much more likely that people will go read whatever you posted by removing those issues. I shared a URL shortening service with someone who routinely posted articles to a list we both belonged to and she was thrilled to pieces and has used it consistently ever since.