Wrong!

URL shortners are not just for doing that very thing. They can also be utilised for marketing pruposes, as they can track statistics and sources, so you can really analyse where your link went and what it brought back for you.

This was a very recent realisation of mine as I was pointed towards bit.ly. My account is now filled with the links I have shared and I can quickly see how many clicks they got, where those clicks came from and where the link has been used (I often reuse the same short URL a few times).

Statistics report from bit.ly

As far as I’m aware, tinyurl.com was the first popular link shortner, pre-dating Twitter. It was utilised by businesses to shorten truely long URLs, perhaps for really long knowledgebase URLs, or URLs that contained lots of info, such as pre-filled forms. However, I feel that although it led the way, tinyurl.com is being overlooked by the majority of the Twitterati as it uses up 6 more characters than the ever popular bit.ly.

So I ask you, dear visitor, which URL shortner do you prefer and why?