These URL shortening services such as tiny.url, bit.ly,  tr.im, and is.gd are becoming more and more popular with geeky people using twitter, and looking to save time typing URL’s. There’s also another reason you should as well. More on that in a minute.

You may have even noticed that Twitter auto converts long url’s in your tweets into tinyurl addresses. So Mike, why should I be using something besides the built in tinyurl that twitter auto converts for me? It’s so easy.

I’m glad you asked, well if you made it this far at least I have you thinking about using one. For the most part it’s easier to type a short URL instead of a long perma-link URL like most blog posts have. If your looking to link people to your recent blog post, or any web resource for that matter, it just makes sense to shorten the link, and the amount of time it takes to do this.

First let me state this if your looking to build back-links, URL shortening is useless. It will not help you with that at all. Since the no-follow tag is so prevalent these days, short url’s can be your friend for other reasons.

Twitter automatically converts long URL’s into short tinyurl’s effectively saving some tweet estate in that 140 character sms limit. I’m here to tell you why you should do this yourself. or use an app like Tweetdeck. We know that tinyurl and is.gd does a great job of shortening the URL,  but tr.im and  bit.ly have raised the bar. Not just a little bit (no pun intended) either, they offer a lot of useful information.

If you sign up for their service, they provide you with a host of tools to monitor activity on that shortened URL. Tr.im & Bit.ly both collect data on how many times that shortened URL was clicked. From anywhere that link shows  in twitter, twiturl, friendfeed, email & direct.

That my friends is a really cool feature, especially for those that want to know if their URL’s or tweets are getting clicked. Try it out and see what I mean. It’s pretty impressive and offers features that others do not. Im going to include the shortend URL stats link for this post in the post itself.

If you click this link it should open the stats for the shortened,tweeted URL to this blog post. Be warned my traffic numbers are palsy, since this domain and blog is like a week old. Still you get the jist.

Be Safe, have fun, Re-tweet if you like this

Tall_Geek

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Mike

Tech writer and creator of this blog. Living the dream of self employment under the warm Florida Sunshine. I write about useful subjects, things that readers will find useful and helpful with technology needs in mind. You can find me on many social networks and very active in the local music scene of Tampa Bay, FL Connect with me on Google+

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