Shortening Links - As Easy as 1-2-3!

In the age of Twitter and text messaging, links to websites are limited in the number of characters they can use to express themselves. On top of that, long and unwieldy links are often an eyesore and very difficult to enter into a browser window by hand. Fortunately, many sites have sprung up for that very purpose. At their core, they are nothing more than redirection sites. They assign each site a short URL and then redirect everyone who enters that URL to the main site.

When choosing a URL shortening service, it is important to make sure the site is legitimate and free of spyware and adware. The best choices are TinyURL, Cli.gs, zi.ma, bit.ly, is.gd, snipurl.com and pop.rl. Next, it is important to choose a service based on what you want to do with your site. Some of the URL shortening sites offer optional ads and split the per-click revenue with you.

To give your site a much needed boost, the answer is a simple URL shortening. Once your URL is nice and manageable, it is easy to Tweet, text and Facebook.