Are URL Shortening Sites Good or Bad?
Are the URL shortening sites a good choice for us?
By using url shortening services like those found in bit.ly, tinyurl etc we are able to make short those big website urls which are uncomfortable to place in emails, and sites like twitter in which we would be able to write just 140 characters. If you are using twitter, it’ll automatically shorten the url for you. Earlier, they used the service of tinyurl, but now they are using bit.ly
Anyways, it’s not about using tinyurl or bit.ly - it’s about understanding the real use of these url shortening services. Well, they are having advantages as well as disadvantages. The advantage is that they can be easily used in emails and also in sites like twitter. But the disadvantage is that, while we click these shortened urls, we are not knowing upfront, where we’ll be reaching upon clicking those shortened links.
Well, scammers and spammers are using this pretty effectively these days. They are using these services so that they can redirect people to sites that are harmful for the users - sites which would inject virus, trojans etc our computers. But the anchor text would be something like “click here to earn money online”, etc which would attract most of the newbies out there. They are clicking the link thinking that, they’ll be taken to a good site which will help them make some money. But they are not knowing where they are taken!
But, these services are of great use to webmasters who would like to shorten their links and send to to potential customers. And they would be able to track their customers as well. This is something provided by only some of the url shortening services, and not all of them does this. Some may even charge a fee for tracking the visitors to their site. So, by using the tracking service, we would be able to find out from which country most of our visitors are coming from. This is just one of the use of the tracking services provided by the url shortening sites.
So, the url shortening sites are with positive and negative aspects !