URL Shortening
Hi readers, today's topic is about
'URL Shortening'. In this session we are going to learn about what is URL
Shortening, purpose of URL Shortening, and how to do URL Shortening.
In the world
of facebook, twitter and instant messaging, the length of characters is a major
restriction, so shortening of URLs has become very popular. So according to
Wikipedia "URL shortening is a technique on the internet in which a
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter in length and
still direct to the required page."
In
short URL shortening is a technique that allows users to access a particular
URL using its equivalent shortened URL instead of original URL of that web
page. Hackers can use this facility to hide the URL of phishing page, or to
redirect you to any particular website.
URL shortening means instead of
typing the original long URL in the browser, user have to only type its
shortened version. The browser will send HTTP request to Shortened URL server,
which will then send back an HTTP redirect to the user, redirecting the user to
the actual website.
Steps to shorten the URL:
Step1:- To create shortened URL, just start your
browser and connect to any URL shortening website. My favorite URL shortening website is http://bitly.com
Step 2:- now type or copy paste URL
you wish to shorten in the space provided and click on Shorten. here I am going
to type facebook.com to shorten. Within a few seconds the website will display
the shortened URL which can easily copied to your clipboard.
Step 3:- copy and paste the shortened
URL in to your browser address bar, and you will be redirected to facebook.com
Some URL shortening websites:
https://bitly.com
http://www.shorturl.com/
http://tiny.cc/
http://tinyurl.com/
http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url
http://is.gd/
http://rubyurl.com/home
http://moourl.com/
http://kl.am/
http://u.nu/
http://shrten.com/
http://short.ie/
http://shiturl.com/
http://doiop.com/