Day by day our technology is developing. Everything is becoming smaller is size but bigger in technologies. Near about 7-8 years ago we were happy with 128 Mega Byte’s pen-drive on our palm. But today we are not satisfied with 128 GigaBytes on our fingers top. Same thing happened to website’s URL structure. Like humans, search robots have been changed. For different purposes, they love to rank short URLs with having proper Meta information. Even some social media platforms like twitter do not support long URLs. Search giant Google has understood the necessity of short URL and hence started to provide free URL shortening services. Url of Google’s shortening service is goo.gl. Along with goo.gl here are many more URL shortening service providers like bit.ly, ow.ly, adf.ly etc. are online today.
Simplest form of URL
First and most important useful part of short URL is making the simplest form of your long URL. With short URL, you can easily share your contents on twitter. Twitter and LinkedIn accordingly allow up to 140 and 120 characters. So, using a short URL you are getting more characters for your content. And you are getting a chance to write compelling and lucrative words for your link. Hence short URL is increasing the chances of getting your content engaged by more users.
Analytics of your short URL
Second useful part of short URL is it tracks the click and keeps record the of clicks. Mentioned URL shortening service providers can keep record of URL clicks. You can easily see your user’s demographic details also which calculates the effectiveness of your content as well as engagement. Some shortening provider offers detailed analytics of your users. They can track your user’s age, sex, current time of his browsing device etc. So, you can easily know your user’s interest and then you can create catchy contents or services for them.
Customized Short URL for SEO
Few URL shortening service provider offers custom URL shortening. That means you can define the last part of your domain by your wish. This is very helpful for search engine algorithm. Suppose you are shortening a page’s url who’s main keyword is ‘short url’. If you create a short url with this keyword then it will be very helpful both for your SEO.
Short URL Example without keyword http://bit.do/aksuey2 .
Short URL Example with the keyword http://bit.do/short_url .
Both the link goes to the same page and Obviously, the second URL says something more than the first URL and search boot can easily guess the keyword for this page which is very important for SEO? You can create custom short URLs under your cherished domains also. Some url shortening provider gives this opportunity to do this but they charge additional fees for this.
Conclusion
URL shortening has become very popular for its effectiveness both in social media platforms and for SEO purposes. Marketers are using these services to hide their referral codes, hackers hiding their pishing URLs behind this short url. And different store owners are shortening their products long URL with short and customized URL. Depending on the use of short URL you can make your websites SEO too. It’s your wish how will you use URL shortening services.