What is a URL shortener and how to shorten a URL?

Everything you need to know about URL shorteners

Using a URL shortener has many advantages, and in this article, we have talked about how to shorten URLs and introduced many top services to you.

Sometimes URL pages may have many characters. If you use this page address in an advertising campaign, it may be confusing for users and the audience may not be willing to go to the site because of this link.

Considering the impact of the appearance of the links on the user experience and its importance in attracting the target audience and returning your users to buy again, you should be able to display the URL used in the advertisement in the best way. Other than this, the use of URL shortening services has effects on increase site traffic, which we refer to in this article from the KeyUpSeo blog.

If you are a website manager and an online business owner, stay with us to get familiar with the URL shortener and its advantages.

What is a URL shortening service?

Long links may not look good and reliable to the user. Like a skilled barber, the link shortener takes over this link and delivers a neat and shortened URL.

Using these link shortener services is so simple that it doesn't need any explanation or training, just open one of these sites, put your address in the specified box, and create a new address.

Why should we use short links?

There are 4 important reasons why you should use shortened URLs when sharing links.

Shortening the link for better appearance

When you post a long and weird link on social networks, it might look like spam and users won't click on it. Link shorteners can turn ugly links into clear links.

Shorten the URL to view click statistics

Short links allow you to monitor the performance of the created links; Do you want to know how many people have clicked on your link? What devices did these people use and which geographical regions were they from?

Use of short URL due to character limit

Some social networks have character limits; For example, for X (Twitter) and LinkedIn, you have 280 and 600 characters per post, respectively, and a long link will take many of these characters from you.

The possibility of personalizing the short link

By shortening the link, you can personalize the new link, use the desired words, and even add your brand name to the link. By adding the brand name, you put your name in front of the user and make yourself more famous by increasing the awareness of your brand.

Well, now that you know the important benefits of these services, it's time to introduce you to some of the best URL shorteners.

Earn money from link shortener

Some link-shortening services have created the possibility that in addition to using the benefits of shortening links, you can also earn money through short links.

To start earning first, you need to register for free in the link-shortening service. Then shorten your links and share them; Then the service will pay you an amount for each click on the link.

When shortening the link, you can choose 2 direct and income methods. If you choose a direct link, you will not be paid any fees and the user who clicks on your link will go directly to your desired page. If you decide on the income-generating method, the visitor will first see the advertisement for a few seconds and then be transferred to the main link, and the announced fee will be credited to your user account.

Link shortening services

In this section, we get to know 7 of the most famous sites that provide link-shortening and link-tracking services.

goo.gl

Google's URL shortener service is no longer working. For a long time, link shortening was the number one tool in Google's hands, but all good things come to an end. This service was officially stopped in March 2019. Of course, Google announced that the links already created with this service will continue to work without errors and will be directed to the destination page.

Apart from Google, there are hundreds of other link shortening services that work well, which we will introduce below.

bitly.com

One of the most popular URL shortening services is Bitly, which we may have used only to reduce link characters, but this service is a complete platform for links.

For example, it shows link performance criteria such as click rate, channel statistics, and geographic information of people who clicked on the links. In addition, Bitly offers brand links and integrates with social media management software.

tinyURL.com

Using this link shortener tool is very simple. Just enter the desired link, and you will receive a shorter and cleaner link with the word you entered to continue the link.

When you enter your link information in the specified field, you will be shown three URLs: a long link, a shortened link, and a third link that can be used as a web preview.

www.rebrandly.com

Rebrandly is another link shortening service that, similar to the previous ones, can integrate with 50 other platforms.

Rebrandly believes that a brand (be it a product or a person) gets more value on the web by personalizing its link.

ShortURL.at

ShortURL.at gives you simple and fast short links like others. Just put the link in the box and click the shorten URL option.

bl.ink

bl.ink is one of the powerful link shorteners

You can create personalized links with the right words, not a link with random characters!

This service also provides analytical reports of click rate, location, language, device, and location and can be integrated with analysis tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe, etc.

smallseotools.com

smallseotools.com has many tools, one of which is a link shortener. Through smallseotools you compress the link very quickly for free, without any additional options.