In a simple sense, a URL is an address of a website or we can say an address of the World Wide Web (WWW). URL is a short form of Uniform Resource Locator.
For Example the Web Address (URL) of this Site i.e., “eInfoDesk” is https://einfodesk.com
URL can only be accessed in Internet Browsers. There are plenty of browsers available for free such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, etc. One can use any of the browsers to check out the URL.
URL Shortening, also known as URL Shrinking, is a process of Changing Long URLs to Short Ones. Even with the Short URL, one can reach the same destination as that with a Long URL.
Is there any need for shortening URLs? If this is the question, then my answer is definitely YES. If you look at any URL exactly then you will find a minimum of 50 characters at least which will be hard for us to remember that so as to visit it in the future. In such cases URL Shrinking alias, Shortening plays a vital role.
Few advantages of the URL Shortening-
- Free of Cost– Most of the websites offer URL Shortening at zero cost.
- Short in Length– The Shortened URL is always very less in alphabetical characters.
- Easy to Remember– As the length of the URL is short then definitely it is easy to remember that.
- Easy to Share– Shortened URLs useless characters so you can use them while sending Messages via Mobile,
- While Tweeting via Twitter (As Twitter provides only 140 Characters for a Tweet) etc.
- Hide / Mask Original URL– If anyone wants to Hide or Mask the Original URL from the viewer then they can send them Shortened Link.
- To Generate Temporary Link (URL)– Anyone can shrink URL to get Temporary Links which will get deleted automatically after a certain period.
- To Earn Money– Few URL Shortening Services pay you upon Shortening the URLs and sharing them with your friends and on Social Media. However, 1000 clicks and impressions are needed to generate money.
These are the few advantages of URL Shortening. However one can use URL Shrinking in his own way depending on his/her needs.
There are hundreds to thousands of URL shortening services available on the internet. Among them, only a few services provide mind-blowing features for free. As per the features they provide, we outlined a few URL shrinking services and placed them priority-wise.
Let’s have a look…
Free URL Shortening / Shrinking Service is a brand new website that offers URL Shortening free of cost. It is one of the best websites offering URL shrinking services with multiple advanced features at no cost.
This service is relatively affordable when compared to all the other URL shortening services, hence we placed this service on top of all the others. This free URL shortening service provides mind-blowing features at a very low subscription.
This service provides 4 plans. One is a free plan, and the other 3 are the Starter, Expert, and the No Limit plan.
Detailed information of all the plans and the features they provide are listed. Kindly have a look below:
Features:
- Absolutely Free to Use.
- Custom Alias– Use a name of your choice for shortened URL in order to remember it perfectly.
- Statistics– Provides a clear picture of shortened URL usage i.e., how many times it has been clicked, from which countries people accessing the URL etc.
- Dashboard– A place where all the URLs shortened are bundled. Editing of Old Shortened URLs is possible too via the User Dashboard.
- No Limits– It is Free and It is Unlimited. Use it to any extent. Shorten as many URLs as one needs. The Shortened URLs were stored for an unlimited period of time with No Expiry Limit.
- Password Protect– Protect the Shortened URL with a password so as to restrict access.
- Geo-Targeting– Amazing feature is available for free. Extremely useful in the case of affiliates. Few sites like Amazon provide different affiliate codes for different countries, in such cases, Geo-targeting helps a lot.
- Splash Pages– The splash page is an intermediate page between the Shortened URL and the Destination URL. Ads can be placed on Splash Pages thereby Earning is possible with this feature.
Bitly is one of the most widely used URL shortening services around the world. This website has gained huge popularity and the team working behind includes tech-savvy persons.
Most of the giant websites (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) uses bitly as their URL shrinking service, and moreover, Bitly is the oldest in web technology. However, the team regularly updates the site and brings it to the front of all URL shortening services.
Bitly offers 4 plans for their users, they are
- Free Plan
- Basic Plan
- Premium Plan
- Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing)
A detailed comparison of their plans is mentioned on the Bitly official website. Visit their official website for more details related to their plans.
Features:
- Anyone can use it for free. However, there are limitations for free users.
- Custom Domain option is available, however, not with the free plan. Anyone can brand the links with their own domains.
- QR code generation option is also available. Anyone can generate QR codes for their shortened links. It makes the process of sharing a bit easier. You can share the QR codes with an unlimited number of users, or you can publish or post them on your own website or blog. This feature starts from the premium plan of Bitly.
- Users can shorten the unlimited number of links at a time in bulk. Bitly can transform any number of links to short forms in a low span of time. This feature starts from the basic plan of Bitly.
- Anyone can use Bitly to redirect their links to some other destination URLs. This feature starts from the basic plan of Bitly.
- Building Campaigns and Tracking facility is available to Bitly premium users. One has to buy the premium plan of Bitly to access this feature. Only suitable for medium and large enterprises and businesses.
- If users have their own website then Bitly provides a powerful API with which automatic transformations of links on the user’s website are carried out through Bitly.
The only drawback of Bitly is that it is a little bit expensive. Not affordable for small enterprises and businesses.
Rebrandly is another great URL Shortening Service which not only transforms long URLs into short but also provides many advanced features along with it. It is the industry-leading link management platform.
Rebrandly differs from others in providing collaboration tools for team members. Links shortened or generated can be shared among the team members with ease.
It is the complete platform for a business to brand and manage its links.
The plans available on Rebrandly and the features associated with the plans are described in detail on their official website. Kindly visit it and select the plan depending on your needs.
Features:
- Provides a workspace for teammates where every team member can work collaboratively to generate links. Every member of the team can able to manage the links later too.
- Facility for custom domain names – Anyone can use their own brand if exists for shortening and managing their shortened links. The 404 error and SSL traffic of domains can be easily managed through shortened links.
- Analytics – Provides details related to the web traffic the shortened links received. Custom reports can be obtained based on the analytics of the shortened links and can be shared with other team members.
- Traffic Routing – One of the excellent features of Rebrandly is Traffic Routing and Deep Linking. Geo-targeting, device-targeting, language-targeting, browser-targeting are the advanced features of rebrandly. Users can able to send the visitors to specific land pages or to the mobile app depending on the visitor’s location, the visitor’s browser, or the visitor’s device, etc.
- Facility for link re-targeting – Another incredible feature of Rebrandly is Link Retargeting. One can insert the retargeting pixel code in the generated short link so that if anyone clicks on it then they will be added to the retargeting pixel.
- Dedicated Account Manager – Premium users of rebrandly will be allotted a dedicated account manager who will help them in achieving the best and in gaining the return on the investment with Rebrandly.
The only drawback of Rebrandly is that it is a little bit expensive. Not affordable for small enterprises and businesses.
TinyURL is another great URL shortening service available on the internet. It is listed among the oldest URL shrinking services. TinyURL provides the features of shortening the URLs and customizing them.
TinyURL provides 3 different plans to their users. They are –
- Free Plan – Just need signing up, followed by email verification for account activation. No need to pay any penny.
- Pro Plan – This plan starts from 9.99 USD per month. This is a pay-as-you-go plan. The price increases if you cross the mentioned limit.
- Bulk 100K Plan – This plan is suitable for medium and big-sized enterprises. Those who want to shorten a massive amount of URLs using their API then they must select this plan. This plan starts from 99 USD per month and is also a pay-as-you-go plan.
All the plans and their features are described in detail on their official website. Kindly visit them to know more.
Features:
- Full-Scale Link Management – All the links i.e., URLs including the long ones and the shortened URLs are managed in one central place i.e., TinyURL Dashboard.
- Branded & Customized Links – Use your own brand name or TinyURL brand to shorten the links and share them with the users to gain their trust.
- Campaign Monitoring & Analytics – Use TinyURL short URLs to track the visitor’s activities. Learn from the TinyURL analytics and build better digital campaigns.
- Real-Time Performance and Click Data – Able to study out the detailed metrics of the shortened URLs from where the traffic is coming from i.e., from specific regions or specific devices. Anyone can optimize their campaigns by keenly observing the user’s performance using the metrics.
- API – The medium-sized or big-sized companies can make use of their API for shortening their URLs and tracking them. Usage of the API totally depends on the TinyURL plan that they select.
T2M URL Shortener is another good URL shortening service that provides excellent features at affordable prices. The full form of T2M is ‘Text to Marketing’ and it is a product of Canadian corporation ‘Zesle Software Inc’. T2M URL Shortner is a link management tool that is mainly built for Businesses, Universities, and Survey agencies.
T2M URL Shortner offers 5 different plans to their users, among which they have to select anyone. The plans available are as follows –
- Basic Plan
- Standard Plan
- Pro Plan
- Premium Plan
- Dedicated Plan
For details and the features provided with each plan, visit T2M URL Shortner’s official website.
Features
- URLs Management – T2M provides a powerful dashboard where all the links can be managed. Multiple URLs can be shortened at a time. A geo-targeting facility for the URLs is provided. 301 HTTP Redirects and Password Protection is also available for the URLs shortened via T2M URL Shortener. QR Codes can be generated for the URLs that are shortened.
- Branding & APIs – Facility to use your own domain name for your own URLs i.e., Custom Branding. Using multiple custom domains is also possible. Free SSL is provided for the custom domains by Let’s Encrypt or else you can use your own SSL certificate. Restful and Multiple APIs are provided, with which you can shorten the links from your domain i.e., website dashboard.
- Detailed Analytics – The detailed analytics reports are provided on the T2M dashboard. The analytics graphs represent the advanced information including the top 10 browsers, platforms, referring sites, clicks by country and device type, etc. Filtering options are provided for analytics.
- Campaigns Management – Easy to create a campaign with T2M URL Shortener and manage it. Categorizing the URLs with custom tags is also possible with which it is easy to track the campaign. You can see the analytics report per tag on the analytics dashboard.
- Dedicated Service Options – Dedicated Instance Option facility is available. You can opt for a dedicated IP address and load balancer, however, the price becomes high. Premium support is provided for dedicated instances. Uptime SLA 99.9% and GDPR Privacy are assured with dedicated instances.
- Add-ons – You can also opt for extra options like Teammates (user seats), Single sign-on (SSO), White labeling feature, UTM builder, Parameter Forwarding, etc., however, the charge for these extra options will be different from the subscription.
