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What is a URL Shortener?

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 5:18 am
by rosebaby3892
URL Shorteners: What They Are, Which Are the Best and How to Use Them Correctly



The URL shortener is a tool that helps reduce the number of characters in a link. The shorter the link, the easier it is to share , whether via email, social media, or a downloadable PDF.

When you start adding UTM tags to your URLs, they can also become even longer and more complex. You need these tags to track your URLs, but the longer they are, the more cumbersome they become. This is where a URL shortener is most worthwhile.

Some tools offer the ability to track link clicks and keep an archive of each religious email list URL you shorten, while others simply provide a shortened URL. There are also some social media scheduling platforms and analytics tools that have URL shortening service built in.

URL shorteners aren't new, but you may not know what they are and how they can help you. In this article, we'll try to clarify what they are, what some URL shortening tools are, and how they can help you make a real difference in the way you track what your audience is doing with your information.

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Let's start with the definition:


URL shortening is a technique where a shortened URL or IP address is used to point to the same page as the longer address. URL shortening uses an HTTP redirection technique, which makes it easier to make multiple URLs available for specific web pages.

A URL shortener can also be described as an online application that converts a regular URL (your website address, for example, that starts with http://) into a shorter format. To do this, you simply copy the full URL of your website and paste it into the URL shortener tool to create a shortened version that is between 10 and 20 characters long.

URL shortening is used in many situations, let's look at a few:

To avoid visually overloading a post that needs to be accompanied by a URL.
Posting messages that need to fit into a limited number of characters, like Twitter.
Store, read, copy or list numerous URLs
Note: URL shortening is also known as URL redirection.

Functions of a URL Shortener
The short URL is a handy tool for forwarding a link, for example if you want to forward a link to a contact via email, to share it on social media or on a mobile device.

In the context of social media marketing, a short URL will give you the possibility to enrich the text part with more information , for example on Twitter.

You're probably wondering if, from an SEO perspective , Google sees the short URL as a good thing. The answer is yes. They do, in fact, use the permanent redirect (code 301), which is what the search engine prefers.