URL shortening services are experiencing a renaissance in the age of Twitter. When every character counts, these services reduce long URLs to tiny forms. But which is the best to use and how you can select that.
301 Redirect
The first column in the chart is for “Redirect.” This is because a top issue to me, and many others, is that a URL shortening service does a “301 redirect” to the full URL. That number stands for the code a web server issues to a browser (or search engine) when a URL is requested.
A 301 redirect says that the URL requested (the short URL) has “permanently” moved to the long address. Since it’s a permanent redirect, search engines finding links to the short URLs will credit all those links to the long.
In contrast, a 302 redirect is a “temporary” one. If that’s issued, search engines assume that the short URL is the “real” URL and just temporarily being pointed elsewhere. That means link credit does not get passed on to the long URL.
In short, if you’re hoping that links you tweet will generate link credit for your web site, you want a service that issues a 301 redirect. Also keep in mind that while 301s might be issued today, a shortening service could shift to 302 directs at any time (and if they do, I hope scorn gets poured upon them).
Tracking
Have people been clicking on your URLs that you tweet? A service like Google Analytics can show you traffic that comes from Twitter, but you might want to drill down further than it allows. A number of URL shortening services provide tracking stats, which in turn range from basic to extensive reporting.
A future article will look at the type of tracking involved. But all things being equal, it makes sense to select a service that provides tracking. Why not have the data if you want it?
To me, tracking is an important feature. That’s why services that offer it get a green for good on the chart and those lacking it a red for bad.
Stability
Nothing is more annoying than tweeting a link using a URL shortener and then having people tweet back at you that the link isn’t working, because the URL shortening service has gone down.
Aside from short-term stability issues, there’s also a long-term consideration. What happens if a service shuts down, as happened to Zi.ma? If a service goes down permanently, it takes down all those links that were passing along credit to your site with it. With Zi.ma, fortunately Kl.am was able to keep those links working. But they could have been gone forever.
TinyURL has been around since 2002, so it has some stature in the space. Newer service Bit.ly recently raised $2 million in funding, which suggests it has some people willing to sink money into its future. But either stature or investment is a guarantee of long-term success.
URL Size: Domain, Path & Total Characters Used
Another issue for many is just how small you can make a URL. A first step in keeping URL size down is if the domain used by the URL shortening service itself is small. For example, popular service TinyURL.com has the domain of tinyurl.com, 11 characters. But service khoz.me comes in at only 7 characters. TinyURL will always be at a disadvantage over khoz.me because there’s simply no way for it to reduce its domain name.
Of course, after the domain name comes the remaining part of the URL, the “path” portion or what on a normal web site would be the page name. The path size for services typically ranges from 4 to 6 characters. If you really want to stay small on character counts, go with a service that uses a short 4 character path.
Keep in mind that over time, even services offering short paths won’t be able maintain this. That’s because there are only so many 3 character combinations that can be used. When those have all been used, a shortening service either has to recycle old combinations or expand the number of characters used.
Recycle URLs?!!! Could that happen? Potentially, yes — a service could reissue a URL that’s been used before. While the others almost certainly don’t recycle, they should be clear about this.
Overall, if it’s essential to save every character, go with a service that currently uses fewer characters for the path. Otherwise, seek out a service that keeps its domain as short as possible. But as I’ll get into, a short domain doesn’t take away from other issues you may wish to consider.
If you’re thinking long-term, especially with tracking in mind, then looking at the total count is the wrong figure, as that will change over time. Instead, the domain character count is more important.
Sharing
Some URL shorteners share the most popular or interesting URLs that are being clicked on through their services. Potentially, this is a benefit to using a particular service. It could bring you added traffic. However, in my survey, few of the sites offering sharing did it in a way (or seemed to have enough traffic) to make this a compelling feature choice. It’s a minor benefit, not a huge one, at the moment. That’s why regardless if it’s offered, all services are colored orange.
A quick recap:
- Khoz.me shows popular links on its twitter feed and on home page
- bit.ly shows popular links on its twitter feed
- kl.am shows most popular links on its home page
- Plurl shows most recent URLs on its home page
- POPrl shows most popular links on its home page
- Snurl shows “interesting snips” on its Browse Snips tab
- Tweetburner shows most popular URLs in last hour and ones that have gotten the most clicks in the last hour
- Short.ie shows most popular and active users
- Eweri is supposed to show popular URLs and latest ones on its home page, but this hasn’t worked for two days running, so I didn’t credit it on the chart.
Handling Parameters
Ever want to retweet a search on Google? Some URL shorteners can’t handle parameters in a URL, all that stuff with ? and & symbols. Consider this search for movie times:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=movie+times&btnG=Search
Put that into some URL shorteners, and they break — they’ll ignore everything from the ? symbol onward and just point people at the Google home page. So when selecting a service, this is another factor to consider.
So when you are thinking about any URL shortner then consider all the point stated above. On my observation, I can suggest you to check http://khoz.me
