How do you share content found on a website or blog? Mostly you don't wanna copy and paste whole bunch of content you find in the source page. However you can do that if you share via email. But rather than sending content, you would prefer to share link or URL of the source content. If you are sharing links on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, sharing whole link won't leave you much room to include your intended message as they impose character limitations in messages. Well, you can't send an URL partially. What if you can shorten the URL you sharing into few characters and able to find how many of users actually clicked on your shared link?
URL Shorteners
You may have heard of URL shorteners. If not, it is a service which converts your standard long URL into a short URL with few characters which points to the same content or page. For example, the URL of this post is http://www.mayura4ever.com/2012/08/google-url-shortener.html and if you make use of an URL shortening service to shorten this URL, it will come out as http://shorten/Pmzwv or like that but when someone clicks on that shorten URL, that person will land on the source page URL which has been shorten. Isn't it really shorty? Haven't your tried it out? You will find it more convenient when you sharing links on micro-blogging sites. Further, usually URL shorteners provide analytics for particular shorten URLs or links, so you can track how many people clicked on that link and related information.
The Google URL Shortener is one of them. Google URL shortener is a reliable service provided by Google. If you are a Google account holder, you can access and manage your short URL history and review click analytics for each shortened URL easily. Hence, it's not only to save space when sharing, but also very useful as you can find more about the users who clicked on your shared short URL.
On the aspect of security, Google URL Shortener warns you if the URL points to a phishing, spam or insecure websites. Further you can grab QR code for your shortened link or URL. So you would find this service very useful for you and URL shortening is just simple as ABC. Anyway analytics of shorten URLs can be accessible by anyone, if they know how. It doesn't matter, right?
Google URL Shortener
The Google URL Shortener is one of them. Google URL shortener is a reliable service provided by Google. If you are a Google account holder, you can access and manage your short URL history and review click analytics for each shortened URL easily. Hence, it's not only to save space when sharing, but also very useful as you can find more about the users who clicked on your shared short URL.
On the aspect of security, Google URL Shortener warns you if the URL points to a phishing, spam or insecure websites. Further you can grab QR code for your shortened link or URL. So you would find this service very useful for you and URL shortening is just simple as ABC. Anyway analytics of shorten URLs can be accessible by anyone, if they know how. It doesn't matter, right?
Before You Go:
You need to have a Google account to save your short URL history with analytics corresponds to each URL. Don't you have a Google account? Create a new account before you proceed.
Steps:
1. Sign in to your Google account.
2. Go to Google URL Shortener website.
3. Now paste your long URL aka actual URL in the text box.
4. Click Shorten URL button.
5. Now you will see the short URL for your entered URL right next to Shorten button. Use it when you share or email content or links to your friends.
More Information:
* When you logged in to your Google account, Google URL Shortener creates random short URLs for the same URL each time you shorten them. So you can share same content multiple times with different short URLs and able to view analytics for individual short URL.
* On the dashboard, you can see all the short URLs you have created while you were signed in. It depicts relevant details and no one has the accessibility to your short URL history.
* You can hide URLs or links from your dashboard using Hide button. Eventhough you hide URLs from your dashboard, the short URL will remain public.
* You need to keep in mind that, all the individual short URL analytics are public. You can see click analytics for your created short URLs by clicking Details link corresponds to your short URL in the dashboard.
Alternatively, you can see analytics by appending .info at the end of your short URL too. But it doesn't reveal the identity of the user who created short URLs.
Alternatively, you can see analytics by appending .info at the end of your short URL too. But it doesn't reveal the identity of the user who created short URLs.
i.e: http://goo.gl/ABCDE.info
Enjoy :-)
