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/