by MelanieChandramai

5 Best tools to shorten URLs

In our everyday life, we often share information via email or many social networking sites like Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc., Posting or sharing long ugly URLs is painful and most of the times the long URLs are misread and misunderstood. Sometimes you are also limited to certain number of characters while sharing information, such as Twitter. To tackle this, you need tools that shorten URL’s. These tools simply shorten the regular long URL to a compressed format. The new short URL will redirect the user to the regular long URL.
There are several free URL shortener services available over the web. I am going to list the 5 best tools to shorten URLs.

  1. TinyURL.com

    is one the most popular free URL shortener services. This tool has a very simple tool-bar with a preview feature. Make sure you enable cookies on your web browser to enable Preview feature. It also offers a bookmarklet for simple browser use.
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  2. Bit.ly

    is another popular free tool that allows you to customize short URLs . This tool is most reliable and simpler tool with additional feature of tracking how many people are clicking the link.
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  3. goo.gl

    is Google’s free URL shortener tool. This tool has an additional feature of providing you with the data of number of times people clicked the link and history of shortened links along with date, time and analytics.
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  4. ow.ly

    is Hootsuite’s built in URL shortenertool which is accessible either on Hoottsuite dashboard or on the ow.ly website. This tools has additional features that allows you to upload images, track number of clicks on link and also share the shortened link to social networking sites.
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  5. lillink.com

    is the one of best free tools I have come across over web with a very simple user- interface. You just have to paste the long URL and hit Shorten. Shortened URL is immediately copied and you can share the link via email or to social networking sites.  It doesn’t have tracking feature like the rest tools but it is just one cute tool with beautiful background slider that displays random images.
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