How Short Should a URL Be?

Filed in archive Web Based Apps on July 30, 2008

Leslie Poston of Profy wants to know, "Do you use URL shorteners outside of Twitter?" I mean really, what would you use them for anyway. Except for sites like Twitter where you only have 140 characters to post with, what other need is there?

Actually, I know that some sites use them in their newsletters. Even if the newsletter is HTML formatted. I'm not sure why, but I know they do.

Maybe you don't know what's meant by a URL shortener. Sites like Tiny URL, bit.ly, is.gd and Link Bee are able to take your long web page URL and make it into something shorter and more manageable for places where you need to show your URL. If you use Link Bee you could even make some money.

If you've ever used a URL shortener for anything, post what for here. We want to know what URL shorteners can be used for.

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Tags: url shortener tinyurl bitly isgd linkbee 2007 short+should

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Response from: Svetlana Gladkova (07/30/08 10:45am)

A comment on Leslie's post that you referred to (and thanks for the link, by the way) suggested that people can also use URL shorteners to hide affiliate links (like when you add them to a blog post itself and don't want to disclose to increase people clicking those links).

And I have also heard of a person trying to sell his car this way - he put a description online and made a remarkable short URL that he displayed on the car itself for potential buyers to easily remember it and visit the site to find more information.

Response from: msnkirici (08/27/08 3:31pm)

http://62.212.74.194/msxcr/