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What are several of the benefits of using URL shorteners? Perhaps the main benefit is that a short URL is easier for copying into an email, a forum post, or possibly a post on Twitter, where the poster is limited to 140 characters for the whole post. Particularly if you want a Twitter post to be passed along by others, you want the address to be as brief as possible to make room for their introductory words.

Another advantage of using URL shortening services is to produce URLs that will be read aloud, to ensure that people will likely spell them out. The URL shortening sites create nice, human-readable URLs, however have a tendency to create longer URLs for readable purposes than once they are strictly shortening an address to minimize the number of characters it contains.

The concept of shortening long URLs goes back to at least the year 2001. The first "breakout" shortening service was Tiny URL, which launched in 2002. Today, you will discover over 100 shortener sites.

Making a URL shorter requires using http redirection to work with a short domain linked to the web page with the longer address. Techniques for doing this include generating keys in the numerical base 36, which assumes 26 letters and 10 digits, or base 62, such as 10 digits, upper case and lower case letters. Another technique uses what is referred to as a hash function, and some shorteners use random number generators to create key sequences.

You shall also find that URL shortening services have evolved a great deal throughout the years which add many additional features to make using url shorteners even better. One nice function is whenever you shorten a URL you will be able to keep track of that URL and check statistics on it such as how many clicks you have received.

Another benefit of these services is the fact that you will start to locate many of them offer you to earn extra money by utilizing your short urls on other sites. When folks click on your short URL on twitter or any other social sites they will go to your URL but may also have an advertisement and also you can also earn money over the URL shortening service.

Users of shortening services should be aware that some services and their products are blocked in some places. As an example, Saudi Arabia blocks some link shortening services, as does the social site MySpace. Panera Bread locations block URL-shortening access in its free URL shortener service WiFi networks, and Craigslist doesn't accept some shortened links.

In case you plan to utilize a short URL service, you could be wise to always preview the shortened address before posting it. There are already instances of services being hacked and redirecting users in unexpected ways.

For the casual poster on sites like Twitter and Facebook, short addresses are certainly handy for keeping your posts brief. But it's always a wise idea to test out any short URLs you generate using a shortening site before posting them to make sure they go in which you want them to.

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