Which URL shortener are you using on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? Do you even care? Well you should! URL shorteners are not all created equal. In fact one of my colleagues reamed me out for using www.TinyURL.com just the other day.
If you use any social networking platforms then you know you have a limited amount of space in which to say what you want to say. Well, what if you want to link to something on your website or online? Here’s where a URL shortener is necessary. You can take a big URL like:
http://searchengineland.com/analysis-which-url-shortening-service-should-you-use-17204
and turn it into a itty bitty URL like this:
Big difference right? In fact if you click either of the links above you will go to a nice article reviewing the different URL shorteners that are popular. Search Engine Land even lays it out graphically so you can see what you think is important in one glance. Personally I use www.Bit.ly as my shortener when I have a choice. Some social networking services do not give you a choice and some use www.TinyURL.com as their default, but there are some nice reasons why you should evaluate which one you use and then stick with it.