What is Bitly URL Shortener?
Bitly URL Shortener is an online application which converts a regular URL into a shortened form. These applications come handy as URL’s tend to be pretty long and may consume a lot of space on your social or email messages.
To use URL shortening services a user needs to enter the long-form URL they want to shorten into the application. The Application converts the URL to an abbreviated form and retains the path to the original URL helping a user gets redirected to the actual destination when a user clicks on the shortened form.
The URL shortening tool can create an abbreviated version of 10 to 20 characters long. Such services are a boon when you have limited space in the place you want to enter information.
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What is Bitly URL Shortener
Bitly is a URL shortening service and a link management platform. (1) The company was established in 2008. It is based in New York City and is privately held.
Bitly shortens around 600 million links per month for use in social networking, SMS and Email. Bitly makes money by charging money for access to aggregated data. In 2017, Spectrum Equity acquired a majority stake in Bitly for $64 million. (2)
Bitly URL shortener can be accessed from bitly.com.
Custom Bitly link
The Company offers a paid solution called Bitly Enterprise (3) that provides advanced branding features, audience intel, omnichannel tracking and more.
Companies can use their own custom domains to generate shortened links, for ex. The New York Times uses nyti.ms. Such shortened URL’s help companies to create a unique branding opportunity for them through such short URL’s.
What it simply means is that the bitly URL you clicked takes you to the page you really wanted to go to.
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How to create Bitly Link
It is quite easy to create a Bitly link. Just enter the URL into the home page on bitly.com and press “SHORTEN”, and now you have the shortened link.
Benefits of Using Bitly URL Shorteners
Below are some of the key benefits of using link shortener services like Bitly URL Shorteners:
1. Make links manageable
Look at the two URLs below:
- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/google-is-killing-its-url-shortener-on-april-13/articleshow/63556669.cms (See the page here)
or the shortened one below:
- https://bit.ly/2GngSyO (See the page here)
Well both the links take you to the same page on The Economic Times Website.
For SEO benefits, all websites like to create URL’s that are descriptive (for SEO) and helps a user take an informed decision. However, just like the example above such links become quite messy to be shared in an SMS or a social media post. Therefore URL shortener makes the sharing easier.
2. Make Links looks Aesthetically Appealing
Just like the example above, imagine if the URL mentioned above is in a Twitter post. The twitter post will be confusing to be consumed by a user. However, with the shortened URL you will not have any such issues. A shortened URL makes the tweet look less cluttered and will be to the point.
3. Tracking and Compilation of Click data
Bitly provides a comprehensive data in the form of live click data, geographic location, the web-page, the link where the link was clicked and more.
This information holds very much value to the webmasters and companies; it shows where the customers are coming from and whatever matters to the companies in provided in detailed stats.
This information helps the companies to develop better products and targeted content. Detailed information makes it more efficient to track.
4. Transforms Social Media Management Services
With Bitly URL shortener social media management becomes much easier. The links can be branded with bitly custom URL shorteners. URL shorteners in its own way work as an aggregator of information. This leads to a better idea of what people share and what they like.
5. Useful features
It is so easy to use a URL shortener; innovations are constantly made that improve user’s experience. There is information about everything that you need to know. Users are also given a choice; they can follow links that will provide features or choose ones that just take them straight to the web page. URL Shorteners positively alter the user experience by making it quick.
6. Promote Sharing
URL shorteners save space, and you can fit any link or content in less space with URL shorteners. In limited characters space like 280 on Twitter, one can create an excellent post with an explanation. Therefore, shorter URLs are becoming more and more integral to the cause.
Benefits of Bitly link stats
With Bitly link stats you can keep track of how many people clicked on your link. You can circulate the URL into non-trackable places such as SMS and get to know the number of clicks that took place on a daily basis.
Why choose Bitly?
With Bitly you will be able to keep so much on track. There are many features that you can use while using Bitly to shorten your URL. There are four core features to know about in Bitly,
1 Bitlinks-
Bitlinks are the core essence of Bitly Tech. They are used to shorten, share and track data of websites. They can track your location, teams, multichannel campaigns and offline collateral too. For more details visit here.
2 Dashboard
Your default screen in Bitly is the Dashboard. You can trace the detailed breakdown of cross-channel engagement of all the bitlinks you have ever used.
You can keep track of Total Clicks, Total Bitlinks, Top Locations, Top Referrers, Bitlink Network Top Content, Top Bitlinks, Bitlinks Network Links, Bitlinks Network Clicks, Total Uniques, Click per Uniques.
3 Bitly Brand Manager
Cross-team visibility is very time taking, and it gets challenging to chart a separate system for each brand. Thus, Bitly brings forth Bitly Brand Manager that sorts all your issues.
It gives you the ability to create different groups under one centralised account. You can complete all the chores- set read, write and view permissions accordingly. You can create individual dashboards for each brand, team or rep. All data under one visibility! Click here to learn more.
4 Track Multi-channel Campaigns with Bitly Oneview
Things get a bit wobbly once you think of running 7 campaigns across different channels, doesn’t it? To check the analytics of all the channels at once, Bitly Oneview can help you with that.
Bitly Oneview is the feature of Bitly Enterprise- Oneview creates a better picture of your stats. It helps you create, measure and manage the links from every click of the customer experience. You will totally be able to analyse the successful campaigns and the sour ones.
How to set up a Custom Domain in Bitly?
● Sign up first for a free account on Bitly.
● Go to Settings > Advanced
● In the Custom Short, Domain section select Personal (for Personal Blogging) and enter your short domain.
● You will have to change the A records for Bitly to work
Note: You should have your own DNS Management System for your domain name to enter A record. Usually, domain names provide DNS Management are free.
● It is done! Your short URLs will start working immediately. You can also track stats such as clicks on your short URL.
Bitly is no doubt one of the most popular URL Shorteners out there, with its user-friendly interface and many features of campaign management, it is comparatively easier to access Bitly than other URL shorteners.
FAQ
Q1 what is a Bitly link?
Bitly Link is an abbreviated or short form of a live URL, which is generally much longer of messy to manage in today’s social world. A bitly link is created from the Bitly URL Shortener tool, which is online.
The to0l retains the path to the original URL helping a user gets redirected to the actual destination when a user clicks on the shortened form. What it simply means is that the bitly URL you clicked takes you to the page you really wanted to go to.
The Bitly link is generally 10 to 20 characters long.
Q2 How to make a Bitly link?
It is quite easy to create a Bitly link. Just enter the URL into the home page on bitly.com and press “SHORTEN”, and now you have the shortened link.
Q3 How to track bitly links
You can track Bitly links with the help of Bitly Dashboard. Bitly Oneview is the feature of Bitly Enterprise- Oneview creates a better picture of your stats. It helps you develop, measure and manage the links from every click of the customer experience. You will be able to analyse the successful campaigns and the sour ones.