How to shrink long web links, Have you ever needed a "shrinker"?

Please, I'm not asking you if you ever needed a "shrink"! I'm sharing today how you can shrink your very long web addresses, etc. using two of my favorites: tinyurl and Bitly.

Have you heard of “Tiny Url”? Sometimes when you are working on the web, you end up getting these long (sometimes very long) urls; addresses, or destinations if you will, that you arrive at after clicking them. My favorite is Tiny Url. I think it was the first out on the web.

 

 

I used it on a recent post in one of my other blogs today so you can go to: http://thatisgoodbusiness.blogspot.com/ and see how I used it in my post announcing my availability to speak at local businesses at a reduced rate. (See what happens when I “shrink” that blog address from http://thatisgoodbusiness.blogspot.com/ down by using tinyurl; it becomes: http://tinyurl.com/cl7g6xy; OK, this might not be much shorter, but you can find very long addresses at times).

Anyway, back to my blog post at “That’s Good Business”, where I was wanting people to click on a link to go to my YouTube video, I could have used the long url address that included the word YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXsxV-DMh7o, but I went to tinyurl.com and created this one: http://tinyurl.com/brvxt8l. You can click on both and see that they will get you to the same destination. There may be times when you want to “hide” your destination such as YouTube, Kindle, etc. for some reason and you can use tinyurl to make this happen. Note however that the words: “tinyurl” will be in your address.

Here’s one of mine about my screen play that is a bit longer to give you some idea: http://www.terscott.com/winterboydetails.html . Here it is after using tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/bsapx7e.

Another favorite of mine is: Bitly.com.

 

Try both “shrinkers” and see which that you like the best. A fellow blogger, Adam offers his favorite five at: http://lifehacker.com/5068945/five-best-url-shrinkers. (Shrinking that address with tinyurl, it becomes:

The following URL:

http://lifehacker.com/5068945/five-best-url-shrinkers

has a length of 53 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 25 characters:

http://tinyurl.com/5mlzsf

Can you see how "shrinkers" can help you in your websites, blogs, etc.? You can find ways to use this when you are “hiding” or “disguising” your sources to your affiliate links, etc.; there really are many ways that you can use smaller links.

You can see about 50 more alternatives at: http://www.siteslike.com/similar/tinyurl.com but I’m not sure they are all “shrinkers”. There seems to be some very beautiful, and also some disturbing pictures on the site as well; “I’m just saying”.

The best way to understand this article above is to click on each link; you might even find my blog “That’s Good Business” interesting or the page on my site that speaks of my screen play: Winter Boy of enough interest to help me get it in TV by reading it at: http://www.terscott.com/winterboydetails.html.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them after this post. Also, consider “following by email” so you won’t miss any posts.

Make it a great day!

Ter