Hey all, Firstly, one question for you guys. How do you expand short URL to original if you find one and you are having doubt on this URL’s safety. Everyone loves shortcuts. Isn’t it? In this article, I will basically concentrate on the whole concepts related to short URL, original or extended URL. Let’s have an overview on the topics being covered below:
- What is an URL?
- What is a shortened URL?
- Why short URL are used?
- How will you expand short URL?
- Your chance of saying.
So, let’s start from beginning:
What is an URL?
Oh, I know that you guys are very well aware of this fact. But, let me tell you again. The term ‘URL’ stands for Uniform Resource Locator. URL is the global address of any webpage. You can see any URL in the address bar of a web browser. It generally looks like:
www.yoursitename.com/default-page.html
Homepage of a website, generally have URL as www.yoursitename.com.
What is a shortened URL?
Shortened URL is the URL, which will land you to the original or required URL, but it will be shorter than original one. It is achieved by doing an HTTP redirection on the domain name, which is short and links to the web page that is having a log URL. For example www.yoursitename.com can be shortened to goo.gl/yoursite. Short URLs are good looking and less complex related to the original. Here are famous URL shortening services:
- goo.gl
- ow.ly
- bit.ly etc.
Goo.gl is URL shortening service by Google. It gives you a short URL for any desired page. This short URL will lead you to the original one when opened. Some services charge for URL shortening. Some services pay you for URL shortening. Really? But why? Which services are doing so? How can we earn money by URL shortening? Too many question? Here are some popular services, I am mentioning below, which will pay you for URL shortening:
- Adf.ly
- Adfoc.us
- linkbucks.com
These services give you a link, which will not take the user directly to the destination, but it will show an advertisement first and then it will allow the user to skip the ad to go to the next page. When the user clicks the button ‘Skip this Ad’ or something like this, some balance is added to your account.
Why short URLs are used?
There are many reasons behind URL shortening. Some, important reasons are as mentioned below:
More sharing:
Short URLs promote sharing as they takes less space and hence, sharing more links in a single tweet or other services becomes easy. It is easy to remember a short URL and message to someone.
Easy Management of links:
It is easy to remember a short URL as you can manage it according to yourself. You can set a short URL like bit.ly/mypage, which is very easy to remember and set according to your choice.
Tracking and compiling click data:
Services like bit.ly are being very useful as they are providing the whole data of total clicks, webpage containing the link, geographic location and much more.
Earning money:
If you are having a lot of traffic on your blogs/websites, you can earn a good income using the link shortening services, that are paying you for this.
Other many useful features are associated with these short URLs. But, sometimes there is a risk of trustworthy of the short URL. In this case, you would like to expand short URL into its original form before loading.
How will you expand short URL?
If you are worried about a webpage safety, either it is safe to visit or not before knowing the original URL or you want to know the original URL for any other reason, here is a guide for you to examine the original URL:
- Go to Long URL.
- You will see a box as shown in below image.
- Put your desired shortened URL in the box and click on expand.
- Now, you will get the detailed information about the URL.
- Now, you can proceed , if you wish to visit the link.
- If you are a Firefox(web browser) user, you can install it as a Firefox extension also. The information may be found under ‘Tools’ tab of the page.
Note: This method does not work for the services, that are used for money making purposes, as these links are locked by putting an advertisement first. You can find extension in your Chrome store also for this purpose.
Your turn:
So, I have said a lot about it, I think. Now, it is your turn to give your suggestions, feedback and other benefits of these services. And if you are having any extra and efficient methods for enlarging the short URL and bring back to their original states, you can share those using comments section below. Thanks for reading the article. Have a nice day.
