Web Sites That Shorten Long URLs

Descriptions of the various attributes are provided after the table.

Click on the service name in the table heading to visit the web site.

Services not reviewed: minilien.com, tinylink.com, urlcut.com, 6url.com, doiop.com, tighturl.com, yep.it, shortlinks.co.uk shurl.net, 301url.com, simurl.com, myurl.in, memurl.com, urlcutter.com, redirx.com, easyurl.net, shorterlink.com, qurlyq.com, dwarfurl.com, shrinkurl.us, starturl.com, urlhawk.com, canurl.com, decenturl.com, nanoref.com, x.se, yatuc.com, surl.co.uk, miny.info, tweetburner.com, is.gd

Services once listed, but which are no longer active, free, or registration-less: makeashorterlink.com, shorl.com, shortlink.us, quickones.org, smlnk.com, smurl.it, v3.net, ek.dk, 0url.com, urljr.com, babyurl.com, eb.cx, lin.kz, linktrim.com, url123.com, maketiny.com, tny.se, w3t.org, urlmask.com, o-rly.net, lnk.in, url.fm, lesslink.com, snip.cc, tinyclick.com, smcurl.com, 1tiny.com, shurl.org, url.etusivu.net, easyurl.com, linkezy.com, ataja.es, ffwd.to, digbig.com, readthisurl.com, littleurl.com, burl.fergcorp.com, surl.se, linkslice.com, ix.it, curio.us, hurl.it, minizo.com, slither.us, tweetl.com, cropurl.eu, urlx.org, hyperurl.com, dn.vc, qurl.net, toolbot.com, paulding.net, prettylink.net, elfurl.com, flingk.com, urltea.com

Description of attributes:

• Default Length - Based on an evaluation of the algorithm and/or an experimental sampling of test cases. Selecting a private option or selecting your own nickname may make the URL longer or shorter, depending on the site.

• Sample - An example URL showing the format that the shortened URLs take (dropping the "http://").

• Expiration - How soon will the short URL expire and no longer link to your long URL? If a service expires their short URLs, they can be re-used by other people to send folks to other long URLs. If a service is listed as "Never" expiring, this is not a promise that your short URL will last forever, but just an indication that it looks like the service maintainers do not purposefully expire URLs.

• Pick Your Own - You can pick your own "nickname" in addition to letting the service pick one for you. This nickname can make your URL even easier to remember (provided you can find one that nobody else has already picked).

• Private - By default, are the short URLs created private (only available to the site administrators and not the general public)? If not, then your shortened URLs are posted on a public page, or anybody can easily guess them.

• Direct Redirect - Is the browser sent directly to your long URL? "No" means that a transition page is shown to the user with the service's branding.

• Statistics - Does the service provide statistics for you to see how many times users have clicked your short URL?

• Editing - Can you change the long URL associated with a specific short URL you created?

• Batch - Is there an easy interface for creating short URLs for a list of long URLs without doing them individually one at a time?

• Subdomain - Can the resulting short URL be an entire subdomain name with no path? For example, does it support http://nickname.domain.com in addition to http://domain.com/nickname ?

• Path Forwarding - Can you append paths to the short URL prefix and have these appended to the long URL? For example, if http://myname.notlong.com redirects to http://longurl.com/users/~mylonguser, then http://myname.notlong.com/apath redirects to http://longurl.com/users/~mylonguser/apath

• Handles Short - Can you generate a new URL even though the resulting URL is longer than the original? This can be handy when you want to standardize your URLs or get statistics on clickthroughs.

• Nondeterministic - Does it generate new, unique short URLs even when you enter the same original URL multiple times? This is good if you don't want somebody else to find out if a URL has already been made short. This is also important if you want statistics on clicks for a short URL you distribute.

• URL Checking - Does the web site check the URL you enter to make sure it is in a valid format and that it returns a valid page?

• Perl API - Is there a Perl module which allows you to generate shorter URLs using this service? Known APIs are available on CPAN in Iain Truskett's WWW::Shorten package.

• IRC bot - Is there a bot on IRC that can automatically generate shorter URLs using this service?

• BBS/Forum - Does the service provide a message posting system where the community can discuss issues related to URL shortening?

• Languages: - In what languages is the service available?

Depending on your use, other factors to consider might include:

• Reliability - Will the service be up when your users are clicking on your short URLs?

• Performance - How many concurrent users can be clicking on short URLs and still get redirected quickly to your target?

• Longevity - How long will the service remember your URL? How long will the service be in business?

• Fine Print - Does the service have any restrictions on its use which may disagree with you?

If you have a serious business application which depends on using short URLs, you may want to build your own; or hire professional web developers to build a robust, high-performance, scalable system.

FAQ: Isn't this comparison biased? Answer: Of course it is! But not because I'm trying to sell anything. The items listed in this comparison are mostly those that would matter to me if I were to pick a URL shortening service, and I obviously tend to implement the features I like. I have added feedback from the owners of other such services and would very much like to hear from you about what is important to you in picking a URL shortening service.