One of the buzz topics last week was Security & Safety. The issue is URL shortening services.
WHAT IS A URL SHORTENER?
Some URLs run to dozens of characters, making them impractical to use. URL shortening services transform long URLs into short ones, thus:
http://searchengineland.com/analysis-which-url-shortening-service-should-you-use-17204
becomes
Shortened URLs are particularly important on character-limited status services like Twitter (140 characters max).
4 PROBLEMS AND RISKS OF SHORTENERS
Some shorteners are built in to services like Twhirl. Most can be surfed up on the web or added to your toolbar. Very convenient. But what are you getting? And what are the risks?
1. Transparency - I like to see where I'm going before I click.
2. Who's monitoring my traffic? By introducing a third party between the user and destination, the issue of trust becomes important. Or, as Ronald Reagan used to say, trust but verify.
3. What if the service goes dead? What happens to my links? All of us use links in our content. It would be bad if those links failed because the service provider went belly up. Is there backup of all transformed links?
4. Bogus redirects - All of us get rickrolled once in a while, but shortened URLs potentially open the door to all kinds of click fraud.
THE SOLUTION: USE BIT.LY
Dozens of services have sprung up, in part to serve the booming Twitterati. Danny Sullivan does an in-depth review in SearchEngineLand.
The short answer: Bit.ly. It's safe and secure. It also has a couple of very cool features:
LINK STATS - I love stats. Now you can have stats on how often and who clicks on your links. Guess what? This can help shape your content to more accurately match your audience.
PREVIEW PLUGIN - This beta plugin for Firefox gives you a cool Flash popup preview of the destination before you click. Voila! Click fraud defeated.
MORE INFO
Got more questions about URL shorteners or security or using social networks for business? Contact us.
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