We want tracking to work everywhere so I recommend using a library with robust cross-browser event handling. It is more focused on what happens once a visitor comes to your site.Link tracking is what seperates the men from the boys in online advertising. With Bitly, you can track how many clicks your shortened links receive, plus bookmark and organize your links on your own personalized Bitly dashboard. That redirect through our server is logged in your campaign report as a click. It's only one of the most popular social media management tools currently out there!
Many people use URL shorteners when they share links to private content, and in fact many web services like Google Maps have offered automatic generation of shortened links for driving directions that reveal personal information like home addresses and sensitive destinations like "clinics for specific diseases (including cancer and mental diseases), addiction treatment centers, abortion providers, correctional and juvenile detention facilities, payday and car-title lenders, gentlemen’s clubs, etc."[34][35] Additional layer of complexity[edit] Short URLs, although making it easier to access what might otherwise be a very long URL or user-space on an ISP server, add an additional layer of complexity to the process of retrieving web pages. There are no real extra features or services, so this is good choice if you just want to get the job done as fast and as smoothly as possible without all the extra fluff like signing in and CAPTCHAs and other stuff.
Google Analytics won't track redirects that don't contain embedded Google Analytics code. As a result, long URLs must be copied-and-pasted for reliability.
You can use your own short URLs to point to different pages on your site. This method can create some clever domains and also have the advantage of using the domain extension itself as part of the word or words you're trying to convey. If you're willing to pay, consider Pretty Link Pro or these low cost solutions on Code Canyon. Undo Undo Shorten URL @ShortenURL 20 May 2011 More Revision 359: + Added feature: include title when posting to Twitter/StatusNet Thanks.
Let's say that you have a website with the homepage that is at: Entering that URL into TinyURL will create a URL like With this you can then redirect someone to anywhere within your site by appending a slash and the pages filename to it. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. An example Turn this URL: X0DER&pf_rd_s=center-10&pf_rd_r=11EYKTN682A79T370AM3&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1270985982&pf_rd_i=B002Y27P3M into this TinyURL: Which one would you rather cut and paste into your browser? You can also view a world map where your last 50 clicks came from. GET THE FREE EMAIL COURSE Straight to your inbox Get the best email and digital marketing content delivered. Alternate and Custom Domains Do you love our service, but hate our domain name? Undo Undo URL Shortener @URL_Shorteners_ 17 Dec 2012 More Have you experimented with promoted tweets on ? Links that users create through the URL Shortener can also open directly in your mobile applications that can handle those links. Other URL shortening services provide a similar destination display.[32] Security professionals suggest that users check a short URL's destination before accessing it[citation needed], following an instance where shortening service cli.gs was compromised, exposing millions of users to security uncertainties.[33] There are several web applications that can display the destination URL of a shortened URL.[citation needed] Some URL shortening services filter their links through bad-site screening services such as Google Safe Browsing. Dead simple to manage multiple custom domains and multiple clients from a single account Consistent branding impression. 3. Tinyurl.com Most internet users (including me) thought that Bitly is the first ever URL shortener. The need for this came about when one of our Healthcare Marketing clients needed to track the actual impact their PDFs were having on their organic search volume, and traffic in general. I’ll use jQuery 1.x for this example since most sites use it but you can substitute a lightweight option such as min.js, Zepto.js, Minified.js or your own event handling functions.