URL Shortening

URL Shortening services are ones which take a long, or complex URL, such as:

http://www.example.com/2009/10/19/tutorial-top-level-domain-names-cookies-privacy/

And converts it into a short one, such as:

http://example.com/t0

There are many businesses which specialize in URL Shortening services, and offer analytics which show graphs of usage, geographic information, and raw data of what clicks occurred when.

Popular URL Shortening Services

• http://tinyurl.com/
• http://bit.ly/
• http://is.gd/
• http://snipurl.com/
• http://twurl.com/

For more information

• Redirect
• HTTP Redirects on Wikipedia
• Mashable's list of URL Shortening Services