URL Short­en­ers For Shrinking Links – The Five Best Short URL Services

Many company websites include de­scrip­tive elements in their URLs which represent content or data hi­er­ar­chies, thereby revealing the structure of their website. However, this often results in website addresses con­tain­ing hundreds of com­pli­cat­ed digits and char­ac­ters. These leviathan links are difficult to remember, type, and share – making them un­suit­able for social media platforms, short messaging services, and print media.

However, there is a solution: URL short­en­ers reduce lengthy addresses to just a few char­ac­ters so that they are much easier to handle – and they simply look better. We present the best providers of small URLs.

Link short­en­ers are online services that provide a second, al­ter­na­tive URL (also known as a URL alias) for the URL of any existing website. Here, the user enters the desired address into an online form on the service’s website. This instantly creates a randomly generated small URL and saves the original and alias in an internal database. The user can now use the shortened link without any re­stric­tions and share it in a forum, for example.

As soon as someone (a client) clicks on the link, their web browser is first directed to the URL shortener’s database, where the target URL is de­ter­mined and sent back to the client. This data transfer can sometimes involve a short delay – but this is neg­li­gi­ble in view of the benefits these services provide. The browser then au­to­mat­i­cal­ly accesses the desired website. This works as long as the provider of the short URL service remains in operation. Some services also ex­plic­it­ly offer time-limited links.

A shortened URL generally comprises the following:

• Domain of the service provider: Link shortener service operators normally use foreign domain endings (top-level domains) that are less wide­spread and also allow a more memorable name for their service (a practice known as domain hacking). For instance, the service bit.ly uses the country-specific, top-level domain for the country of Libya (.ly).
• Unique iden­ti­fi­er: The second half of a small URL is given by a short, randomly generated sequence of ASCII letters and digits, which is only assigned once within the service and serves as a unique iden­ti­fi­er. For example, the link 'https://bit.ly/2GXCxfW' – shortened with bit.ly – contains the iden­ti­fi­er 2GXCxfW.

Some providers also allow users to customize short URLs, enabling them to include a brand or company name (e.g. 1and1.ionos/) or a piece of in­for­ma­tion (e.g. /dig­i­tal­guide) in the generated link.

A link com­pressed using a URL shortener takes up less space, is less complex and therefore easier to memorize and use. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fi­cial if an address is long or contains lots of special char­ac­ters, as is the case with websites that operate with database variables.

Above all, small URLs make it easier for the user to share the link – either by copying and pasting, or by manual typing. In print media like business cards and pro­mo­tion­al materials, a lengthy link would have to be printed very small or over multiple lines; neither option is elegant or practical. By contrast, a shortened version of the same link is easy to integrate – without affecting the overall ap­pear­ance – and can be ac­com­pa­nied by a cor­re­spond­ing QR code. Plus, it can be entered into the address line of a browser with just a few keyboard strokes. For the same reasons, shortened URLs have also become popular in email texts, where inserting clickable hy­per­links is un­ad­vis­able in any case due to security concerns.

What’s more, multiple variants of the same URL can be created with a link shortener. On the one hand, this lets you generate links with adapted wording for various platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube). On the other, you can track each in­di­vid­ual link to determine the ef­fec­tive­ness of an online or offline ad­ver­tis­ing campaign based on the click rates, for example.

Small URLs are also wide­spread in mi­croblog­ging services like Tumblr as well as in messaging services (e.g. SMS) and social media statuses (e.g. Instagram), where space is limited to just a few char­ac­ters.

In everyday life, you can use a link shortener to share in­ter­est­ing websites with relatives, friends, and ac­quain­tances, for example. In a pro­fes­sion­al context, short URLs are useful as an ad­ver­tis­ing and tracking tool. For this reason, it’s important that you find the perfect service provider for your campaign from the wide range of online URL short­en­ers. This depends on the following quality criteria:

A good URL shortener needs to be one thing above all else: simple. Shrinking a link should not take longer than a few seconds. And it should never fail to work simply because the service provider is strug­gling with some server issues. If you run a business, your choice of link shortener should ideally com­ple­ment your existing workflow seam­less­ly, allowing you to instantly exchange business-relevant resources with col­leagues, for example.

Another quality criterion of a link shortener is the ability to create cus­tomized short URLs. For many services, the option of user cus­tomiza­tion is limited to the iden­ti­fi­er – i.e. the second half of the link. However, even this means the user is able to recognize where the link goes, like to a reg­is­tra­tion form (e.g. /reg­is­tra­tion). Moreover, an actual word is easier to memorize than a randomly generated string of char­ac­ters.

Some URL short­en­ing services offer paid company accounts based on an (often ne­go­tiable) monthly rate. These typically include the ability to brand shortened links by adding your own brand or company name. Here, the re­spec­tive provider’s top-level domain is replaced by the desired name. This not only looks more pro­fes­sion­al, but the URL is also more rec­og­niz­able and trust­wor­thy, which can pos­i­tive­ly affect the click rate.

While some URL short­en­ers are limited to short­en­ing links, others operate as extensive software providers that wish to offer you support in online marketing. Most commonly, tools are offered for link tracking and data analysis which enable you to filter and evaluate the click rates of in­di­vid­ual small links according to time, ge­o­graph­i­cal location, and source.

Browser ex­ten­sions are also popular, including a bookmark function that you can use to generate a shortened URL for the current website with a single keystroke, without having to copy the original link from the address line first. A number of services like YouTube also allow you to directly share shortened URLs on various platforms. You may also be able to create your own shortened link generator and use it for your own hosting ac­tiv­i­ties.

This point is often over­looked when comparing link short­en­ers: If a small URL first directs the client via an external database before the target website, there is generally the risk that your website will lose organic traffic. You can prevent this with 301 redirects. A 301 redirect sends the HTTP status code “301 Moved Per­ma­nent­ly” to the re­quest­ing client, stating that the requested resource has been per­ma­nent­ly relocated and can now only be reached via a new URL. This way, traffic no longer benefits the service provider but your website only.

Anyone who types “URL shortener” into Google will in­evitably find countless articles covering the various security risks of using link short­en­ers. There are a variety of reasons for these risks: One of them is that data is also stored on an external server – the provider’s server – when creating a short URL, which generates a cookie. Another reason is the danger of misuse as­so­ci­at­ed with the existence and use of these kinds of services.

By nature, URL aliases hide the real link des­ti­na­tion from the user, and this can be exploited for phishing. For instance, any cyber-criminal could es­sen­tial­ly create a short URL and thereby conceal it as a link to an os­ten­si­bly trust­wor­thy company, sent in a credible-looking email. However, this link could send the user to a website that attempts to comprise their computer using security vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in the web browser. This practice is even able to cir­cum­vent provider black­lists.

Since many short URLs have already been blocked by providers due to these cases of fraud, providers have responded by taking security pre­cau­tions. The minimum effort now is to support client requests redi­rect­ing via an encrypted HTTPS con­nec­tion. You can see whether this is possible with your choice of link shortener if the cor­re­spond­ing ab­bre­vi­a­tion https:// in front of the top-level domain of the short URL.

Many services like TinyURL also offer a preview feature. This enables the user to first access a preview page before the actual target website, where they can review the actual link des­ti­na­tion and confirm their request. These shortened URLs are typically marked by the element “preview.”. For instance, the link 'https://www.ionos.de/dig­i­tal­guide/server/knowhow/links-kuerzen-mittels-url-shortener/' is turned into 'preview.tinyurl.com/y6exetx2'.

Here is a selection of the best link short­en­ers for pro­fes­sion­al and private use:

Since being founded in 2008, bit.ly has not only become the most popular small URL provider, but also a prof­itable business model. Today, bit.ly presents itself as a com­pre­hen­sive software-as-a-service product (SaaS), which boasts all relevant features and has therefore also been in­te­grat­ed in many third-party apps and services.

bit.ly offers something for every user: Bloggers and social media users ap­pre­ci­ate the re­li­a­bil­i­ty and user-friend­li­ness of the free-to-use tool. Companies like eBay, Samsung, and monster.com benefit from the detailed, real-time analyses that can be accessed on an intuitive dashboard and which even work with deep links on mobile devices. However, unlimited branded links are only possible with the paid en­ter­prise sub­scrip­tion.

Rebrandly is con­sid­ered one of the best URL short­en­ers for creating branded links. Since 2015, the Irish provider has seen a perfect op­por­tu­ni­ty for brands – like products or even per­son­al­i­ties – to stand out from the crowd of com­peti­tors using cus­tomized short URLs. Rebrandly excels with a wide range of functions that not only covers link man­age­ment but also analysis and col­lab­o­ra­tion features, as well as traffic routing, QR code gen­er­a­tion, and domain name man­age­ment.

However, you can only use most of these premium features once you pay for one of the service packages – starting at $29 per month for in­di­vid­u­als or $449 per month for teams. Newcomers can also enjoy the free basic version that allows the creation of 500 branded links and the tracking of up to 5,000 clicks per month, for instance.

To use bl.ink, you first have to create a free account. This gives you the ability to generate 1,000 links and track up to 1,000 clicks per link. For a link shortener aimed at small companies, it’s that’s actually really good. If that weren’t enough, you can sign up for one of four paid en­ter­prise packages and enjoy extra features as well as rare top-level domains (e.g. .news, .social, .media).

The in­te­grat­ed analytics dashboard offers clear in­for­ma­tion for multiple users on the most popular links as well as traffic received, combining date, time, language, device, ge­o­graph­ic location, and source. The provider also em­pha­sizes its “En­ter­prise Grade” customer support, which helps users become familiar with all the features and get the most from the tool.

The American shortened link service Tinycc was the first free service to offer users link editing. Since its founding in 2006, Tinycc has expanded its offering to more than 100 features, including bulk op­er­a­tions for pro­cess­ing multiple URLs in one go. The service has also developed its own REST API and webhooks API which can send no­ti­fi­ca­tions to third-party servers whenever events occur in your Tinycc account. While all the packages are subject to a monthly charge, a free trial is also available.

These packages start from $5 per month for the “Basic” variant, con­tain­ing one custom domain and 500 links, to the “Pro” version at $49 per month, which includes 50,000 links, 50 users, and a whole range of other extras like unlimited phone and email support. Tinycc also allows users to limit the validity of links, use cor­re­spond­ing QR codes, as well as integrate their short links with Google Analytics.

TinyURL has existed since 2002 and is still one of the most popular URL short­en­ers. It’s com­plete­ly free to use and enables you to customize the iden­ti­fi­er of your short links with letters, numbers, and slashes. A preview feature can be toggled on and off using the cor­re­spond­ing menu item. What’s more, you can integrate a button into your browser toolbar from the provider’s homepage, allowing you to create short URLs for the websites you visit at the press of a button.

Apart from that, TinyURL offers no extra features – either for tracking or data analysis. The service is therefore primarily intended for quickly and anony­mous­ly gen­er­at­ing shortened URLs for private use. The only dis­ad­van­tage is that the links generated with TinyURL comprise more char­ac­ters than with other services like bit.ly as a result of the longer top-level domain.

Here’s a direct com­par­i­son of all the short URL services presented in this article: