1 billion times.[1] Other uses of URL shortening are to "beautify" a link, track clicks, or disguise the underlying address. Here’s an example I quickly put together for a bundle of Automator articles I‘ve written- . A link shortening service is a middleman, serving up a link that sits between your user and the end result. Top-level domains of countries such as Libya (.ly), Samoa (.ws), Mongolia (.mn), Malaysia (.my) and Liechtenstein (.li) have been used as well as many others. Hanselman was redirected through a convoluted path that used link shortening for analytics and tracking, and found the end result frustrating from a user standpoint.
This may sometimes be done using short, CAPTCHA-protected URLs, but this is not common.[3] Makers of URL shorteners usually register domain names with less popular or esoteric Top-level domains in order to achieve a short URL and a catchy name, often using domain hacks. Use this feature to keep data longer than 30 days, send it to clients, or do custom analysis. Free users can choose between “go.clickmeter.com“ or “9nl.com“ as a domain name for their tracking link, while pro users can choose their own domain name. On the Setup step, provide a title for the email in the Google Analytics title for email field. If you have a large Twitter following, tweeting a link to your followers is a surefire way of getting many views.
Alternate and Custom Domains Do you love our service, but hate our domain name? Brand the client's links to increase engagement and inspire audience trust. As a result, long URLs must be copied-and-pasted for reliability. This means you couldn't register, for example, domain.uk. The API key is safe for embedding in URLs; it doesn't need any encoding. A total of five parameters are automatically appended when you enable Google Analytics: utm_campaign: will automatically be the name of the campaign as it appears in Sailthru. utm_medium: will automatically be “email”. utm_source: will automatically be “Sailthru”. utm_term: will automatically be the name of the sending list as it appears in Sailthru. utm_content: if you are sending an AB Split or AB Winner or Auto Winner Campaign, this utm parameter will be added to your links.
They keep URLs that are loaded with UTM tracking tags from looking ugly by hiding the length and characters in the UTM tracking system. It does not allow for a custom domain at this time. Some shortening services, such as goo.gl, tinyurl.com, and bit.ly can generate URLs that are human-readable, although the resulting strings are longer than those generated by a length-optimized service. Some URL shortening sites, such as TinyURL.com, will also offer you an option to specify your own “key” or alias for the longer URL you supply. Therefore, as a Twitter marketer who needs to track link performance, you should use bit.ly.
The best analytics URL Shorteners and Analytics: Which Ones Deliver Results? Determines unique and non-unique click distribution. Authenticate your Google Analytics profile or enter UA-Code manually. D) The Anchor Text they're using E) Links that are just discovered (a new, awesome feature in OSE) Using this information you can get a better idea of who is already linking to you in order to reach out and connect. I could probably go on and on with a dozen more URL shorteners, but lets be honest, you only need one. Choosing A Link Shortener There are no shortage of link shorteners out there. Owned Media email and SMS campaigns, web site banners and landing pages, viral posts on social media or even QR codes on physical posters. This is the programmatic side of the web site at goo.gl. Not only is this good for link shortening, but it is also good for SEO. Every single email address links contains mailto: so this firing rule ensures that this tag only fires on clicks where links are “mailto” type email addresses. Other Features If you hang out in Bitly.com long enough, you’ll discover several other features for further customizing your links and stats page.