What are several of the advantages of using URL shorteners? Probably the main benefit is the fact that a short URL is easier for copying into an email, a forum post, or perhaps a post on Twitter, where the poster is restricted to 140 characters for the whole post. Especially if you want a Twitter post to be passed along by others, you want the address to be as brief as possible to make room for their introductory words.
Another advantage of using URL shortening services is to produce URLs which will be read aloud, in order that people can easily spell them out. The URL shortening sites create nice, human-readable URLs, however usually create longer URLs for readable purposes than once they are strictly shortening an address to minimize the number of characters it contains.
The concept of shortening long URLs goes back to at least the year 2001. The very first “breakout” shortening service was Tiny URL, which launched in 2002. Today, you will discover over 100 shortener sites.
Making a URL shorter requires using http redirection to work with a short domain linked to the web page with the longer address. Techniques for doing this include generating keys in the numerical base 36, which assumes 26 letters and 10 digits, or base 62, that features 10 digits, upper case and lower case letters. Another technique uses what is described as a hash function, and some shorteners use random number generators to generate key sequences.
Additionally you will discover that URL shortening services have evolved a great deal over time which add many additional features to make using url shorteners even better. One nice function is whenever you shorten a URL you will be able to keep track of that URL and check statistics on it such as how many clicks you’ve got received.
Another benefit of these services is that you will start to find a lot of them offer you to earn extra money by using your short urls on other web sites. When people click on your short URL on twitter or any other social sites they are going to go to your URL but may also have an advertisement and also you can also earn income throughout the URL shortening service.
Users of shortening services should be aware that some services and their products are blocked in certain places. For example, Saudi Arabia blocks some link shortening services, as does the social site MySpace. Panera Bread locations block URL-shortening access in its free WiFi networks, and Craigslist does not accept some shortened links.
If you intend to use a short URL shortener service, you could be wise to always preview the shortened address before posting it. There happen to be instances of services being hacked and redirecting users in unexpected ways.
For the casual poster on sites like Twitter and Facebook, short addresses are certainly handy for keeping your posts brief. But it is always a wise idea to test out any short URLs you generate using a shortening site before posting them to ensure they go where you want them to.