If you are a regular on twitter you know URL shortener services are all the rage. Some of these services have been around long before Twitter was ever conceived, others are brand new. Most of these services have one specific purpose, to take your long ugly URL and turn it into a shortened, easy to share one. When you click on the shortened link you are magically redirected to the original page of content.

As you will see in this review, some of these services do much more than that. Some services will track the clicks via the short url it generates allowing you to get an indepth view of who is clicking those links. Still others don’t just silently redirect to the content page, they offer a tool bar to help others share the content as well. It should be noted, in most cases the features I describe below are only available by registering a free account with the URL shortening service.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at 25 or so of the top URL shrinkers and see what they offer:

http://tr.im/kZX1
URL Length: 17 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: For starters the Firefox plugin makes shortening and sharing extremely easy. When I’m visiting a webpage I want to share, I simply click the tr.im button.  It creates the shortened URL using my registered account for tracking and then opens up a convenient box to send the link with my message directly to my twitter account.  Instant twitter-ability is also available by logging into the site itself.  At 17 characters it also has one of the smallest URLs you can get and on twitter every character counts! You can go back and edit your trimmed links to make them easier to find later, and a single click will get you your most visited links.

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http://bit.ly/4s1n7
URL Length: 19 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: Inside the login area this URL shortener is heavy on the AJAX making the entire experience very seamless and enjoyable. The statistics on your shortened URL update automatically so when you publish a link you can watch the traffic without a single refresh. The only Firefox plugin I could find will display the long url version of bit.ly shortened links on a web page, so no click and tweet button here. It does however have a “bookmarklet” that helps automate the process. Another great feature is the thumbnail image it pulls from the landing page. You can also see who else has trimmed the same URLs which is kinda neat. Custom URL aliasing is also available.

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http://tinyurl.com/q2lgsb
URL Length: 25 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Often referred to as the “Grandaddy of URL shorteners” this was most definitely one of the first services and it’s still one of the most widely used today. Custom URL aliasing is available, but I couldn’t find any way to make an account in order to track URL statistics. A bookmarklet is available for those quick shrink jobs.

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http://ow.ly/7j75
URL Length: 17 chars
Statistics: No
Review: This URL service was put together by the folks that created HootSuite.  If you use HootSuite it is fully integrated into the website.  When visitors click on the ow.ly URL they are presented with a “toolbar” along the top of frame with the target webpage showing up just below.  The toolbar allows for very easy ReTweeting, content voting and a convienent button to share the link with multiple Social Media outlets.  If you shrink to ow.ly using Hootsuite your twitter icon will be used in the toolbar which is pretty cool.

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http://moourl.com/lg7dz
URL Length: 23 chars
Statistics: No
Review: If you are a cow lover, and there are thousands of you out there, this is the URL shortening service for you! These URLs are trimmed by a very cute cow, and thats about all you get besides the sexy cow friendly URL.

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http://digg.com/u13Syq
URL Length: 22 chars
Statistics: No
Review: This URL shortening service has been surrounded by much controversy and has gone through several revisions.  It was designed to allow easy sharing of stories on Digg.com. Much like ow.ly you are presented with a toolbar upon clicking affectionately named the DiggBar. Due to the controversy the DiggBar is only visible if you are currently logged into Digg which many argue decreases it’s value. It is very easy to use, simply add http://digg.com/ before any URL and you will be redirected to your shortened link!

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http://sn.im/i61j9
URL Length: 18 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: There are a lot of customizable features with this service. They have 4 different domains you can shrink to, I chose the shortest one for my example since that is the point of shortening services. Custom aliases are available and even a custom URL key can be added to your shortened URLs to prove their yours. From within your account you can browse what everyone else is shrinking making for some interesting discoveries. Plenty of tools to help make sharing your content quick and easy. They also give you the ability to shorten multiple URLs in batches.

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http://budurl.com/6h6q
URL Length: 22 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: This URL shortening services is feature packed! Of course you get what you pay for, these folks charge monthly fees to access the deep click analytics tools and you are reminded constantly as you navigate the site with upgrade links reminding you of what you are missing. From what I could tell most of the paid analytics are offered by tr.im and bit.ly at no cost. The free account allows tracking of up to 250 URLs and your first 25 clicks of each URL get the “premium” click stats to hook you into their pay plans. They let you choose what kind of redirect 301 or 307 a huge help for anyone concerned with SEO. Custom aliases are available.

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http://bacn.me/646
URL Length: 18 chars
Statistics: Yes - Minimal
Review: There can never be too much bacon in the world as proven by this URL shrinker. The domain alone makes it a cool service to use. They smartly integrated openID as their login mechanism which I like. Only the basic click count is tracked for stats unfortunately.

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http://is.gd/AvF0
URL Length: 17 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Pronounced “is good” - this is another garden variety URL shortener. If you are looking for a simple no frills shrinker at the lowest character count out there this is the one for you. The one cool “extra” feature offered is the ability to shrink email addresses also.

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http://idek.net/BGC
URL Length: 19 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: A handy URL shortener with bookmarklets, stats, wordpress plugin and a 301 redirect. Includes basic click count tracking.

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http://eweri.com/M79
URL Length: 20 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Made for those sheep loving folks out there here comes Ewe-r-i to the shagrin of the sheep herders. Yes I can think of a million jokes for this one too folks - Ewe! These guys offer a list of popular URIs with screenshots.

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http://ub0.cc/c2/07
URL Length: 19 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: If you can look past the URL, with the very scary address this is a decent service. You can track your small urls just by using your GMail id and password to login. They also have a preview option.

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http://w3t.org/18ef25
URL Length: 21 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: No this is not a url shortening service from the w3c though that would be interesting. I really like how they let you password protect a shortened URL to protect semi private content. You can alias your shortened link and even set an expiration date. Unfortunately you are dropped on a middle man landing page with this service.

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http://hex.io/xv2
URL Length: 17 chars
Statistics: No
Review: One thing that sets these guys apart from the rest is that they offer code you can embed into your own website to shorten URLs for you and your guests which is pretty darn cool. They also have a bookmarklet to to shrink on site.

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http://lin.cr/kmm
URL Length: 17 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Easy to use API is available. They also provide plugins for not only FireFox but also for the Opera Browser. Easy one click to send your link out via twitter.

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http://twurl.cc/yu1
URL Length: 19 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: Extremely easy to use, anyone with an openID can track basic click information.

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http://short.ie/xrj95f
URL Length: 22 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: This is more than just a URL shrink tank, this is a full fledged community of linkers. You can meet other people that link to similar content & tweet directly from the Short.ie website.

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http://poprl.com/1I9R
URL Length: 21 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: A handy URL shortener with list of popular URLs with screenshots and bookmarklets.

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http://cli.gs/4rEJBp
URL Length: 20 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: Cligs has a bookmarklet, a Google Gadget (for iGoogle and GMail) and lots more tools to help you make the most of your URL shortening experience.

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http://tiny.cc/BkD92
URL Length: 20 chars
Statistics: Yes - Basic
Review: Tiny.cc offers custom aliased short urls, basic traffic statistics and thumbnail previews help users determine credibility of destination pages before clicking.

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http://rubyurl.com/cnLv
URL Length: 23 chars
Statistics: No
Review: RubyURL was the first project that Robby Russell, founder of Planet Argon built and deployed with the Ruby on Rails framework in early 2005. The code behind it has been open sourced and is available on Github. Bookmarklet is available.

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http://vieurl.com/8qpwp
URL Length: 23 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Very simple interface with no frills besides the developers API complete with PHP examples.

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http://dwarfurl.com/8dcfd
URL Length: 25 chars
Statistics: No
Review: Just in case you need to bust out a medieval midget badass here’s DwarfURL to the rescue. Firefox add on is available as well as password protecting your links. There is a public timeline to discover new content, you can select your dwarfed url be hidden to the public though.

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shorl.com http://shorl.com/prefryfoluhuho

URL Length: 31 chars
Statistics: Yes
Review: Not only is this a REALLY long URL in today’s shortening services world, it first drops you off at a shorl.com page and then redirects you to the landing page with content which is pretty annoying. The only benefit of that middle man page is it allows you to flag URLs as spam to reduce abuse of their system which is a nice feature I see missing on most URL shortening services. No account creation is necessary to view the click stats, but it requires remembering a long random key.

Tags: short urls, twitter, url helpers, url shorteners, url shrink

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Blog, Social Media, Web Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.