[Karl]

Some further points and advice or opinions on an issue originally raised here: Use Twitter - It Is Part Of The Future Of Networking

From: Search Engine Journal – September 19, 2008

> URL Shrinkers - When, Where and Why to Use Them

Benefits of URL Shorteners:

• very short URLs: for example, some services allow for very short (appealing) links (Is.gd);

• URL tracking: a few services offer handy statistics.Dwarfurl.com shows how many times an URL was clicked and bit.ly offers stats by referrer.

• customization: some services (e.g. Snurl) allow to insert words in the string (to make it more appealing);

• bookmarking: many URL shorteners (Snurl, TinyURL, Dwarfurl.com, IcanHaz) provide either FireFox buttons or extensions for you to easily shrink URLs right with one click from your browser.

Disadvantages of URL Shorteners:

• “Ugly” URLs: no readable words in the URL (the user doesn’t know “what awaits him”); destination domain name is also invisible that allows for abuse;

• Shortened URL “blindness” (especially with popular services); people just won’t click it unless it is from a trusted person (see: “Avoid Blind TinyURL Clickthroughs“);

• Some services (e.g. Tiny.cc) will send the user to the advertisement before redirecting to the destination page;

• Not safe(like with any other third party solutions): once the service is down, your shortened URL will no longer work.

• Browser-associated problems: some browsers simply have problems loading the shortened URLs, (Example: “Cannot access TinyURL.com“).

Conclusion:

• use the services when you can’t do without them (e.g. with Twitter and Twitter applications that automatically shrink a long URL using TinyURL);

• use the services when you don’t care if the link will be clicked or who it will be clicked by;

• don’t use them at your own site.