With the huge popularity of Twitter and its 140 character limit, the fact that url shortening services also grow exponentially in the same time. Although the existence of this kind of url shortening services has once sparked a debate in the tech community, but the usefulness of making lengthy links become more shareable are actual good in someway for the Web.

In the past, some have doubt that if we aren’t careful in occasion, we might end up clicking the wrong link which redirect us to bogus sites and pick up malware along the way. Perhaps, you’ve heard of the best defense to avoid clicking the links from the unknown users (assuming you want to read an article), please check where the link will take you to.

Now, there’s a new Web service which allows you to check the link, especially for the shortened link, where it will go from here. LongURL, as the name suggests, will expand the URL link and shows you the detail of its redirect. In this way, it actually safeguard and keep you awake before the clicking of wrong link taking in place. For some instances, if you aren’t 100% sure whether or not you want to click the link, you can copy and paste the shortened link on LongURL and take a closer look after the expanding since LongURL also reveals the conversations, if any that surrounding that URL, in addition to the meta tag of that particular redirect.

For the content publishers, one of the Web services they probably will use daily is the URL shortening service, simply because of its ability to shorten the content URL and share the links to thousand of potential readers. However, to use the URL shortening services to the next level, such as to attract more audience for the site you managed, not many can helps you to get more traffic than this Su.pr.

Su.pr, a Web project of the popular social bookmarking service StumbleUpon, is not only a service that served as an URL shortener. With Su.pr, you can enter the text message as well as URL link and post it to Twitter, and Facebook. For the text message and URL link you posted, it will be converted into a Su.pr link.

Su.pr also helps solve the problem of making the content, i.e. the Su.pr link you want to share at the time in the future with the “schedule” feature. For example, if you want your piece of Su.pr link to be shared in future, assume that on tomorrow, you can schedule the URL link to be shared in that time given.

In addition, one of the reasons that Su.pr has received attention is because of the administrative dashboard provided can give you the basic statistical data of the Su.pr link you shared. The statistical data, though is in the basic form, can give you the number of clicks, view stats, and retweets. If the Su.pr link you posted has already been reviewed by any user of StumbleUpon community, the number of same review will be shown. For the statistical data, you also can download it in MS Excel csv format for future reference.

For the traffic sources functionality, Su.pr can helps to track and compile data mainly from these two (2) different sources, the direct one and the StumbleUpon organic traffic. For the traffic not came from these sources, which are typed, bookmarked, email, and mobile, they are considered as organic traffic. Basically, organic traffic is the additional traffic when the Su.pr link has been shared with the StumbleUpon community and being thumb-up by the users. As more users thumb-up your Su.pr link, it will be shared with more people who share similar interests. In other words, when a lot of people thumb-up your Su.pr link, assumed that the Su.pr link will point to your own content, it’s clear that your eventual goal of making your content to reach more audience will be achieved in this manner. If your own user-generated content is one of the popular links in the StumbleUpon community, as people thumb-up and like it, you’ll find this Su.pr’s offering is more than what the ordinary URL shortening service can offer.

As we know, URL shorteners work in their own way. But for the domain branding purpose, you can create the short URLs on your domain. It is now possible if you’re running a blog with the WordPress platform and install the Su.pr plugin for WordPress. However, you’re required to do some configurations before you can get your very own short URL on your own domain.

Overall, Su.pr has really caught me eye, though in fact it’s a bit more complicated than the other URL shorteners out there on the Web.

URL shortening service are not new nowadays. It seems that there are endless supply of new URL shorteners appeared on the Web in tandem with the rise of Twitter, which only allows users to post any message not more than 140 characters. For those who haven’t use any URL shortener before, it is very easy to use as you simply just need to copy the URL of the Web page you want to shorten, it will helps to shorten the URL link in a one-click, for instance from over 100 characters long URL to a short URL link that not more than 20 characters, thus makes it more shareable in blogs, or social networks such as Facebook.

However, if you think you want to use a URL shortener for multi URL links, you can check out the service from MultiURL. As the name implies, MultiURL works pretty much the same as other URL shorteners. However, it can helps to shorten multiple URL links in a go. You can use it either the regular mode or the batch mode. And whenever you created the link, it will stay in your account so that you can use it in near future. Another good optional feature is that you also can group the multiple URL links you created under a group name, with customization such as password-protect your group.

You’re probably heard or used TinyURL, the URL shortening service that is so popular on Twitter right now. And this is a post on a review of a URL shortening service. Perhaps you will ask, “There’s many URL shortening services out there on the Web, why bother to write a review on any one of them?”

It’s true there’s many of them, but when it comes to online product selling, especially if you’re promoting your affiliate marketing business, you’re not only need a tool that helps you to shortening the URL, but also a tool that will cloak the URL. Most of these tools are not free, you’ll need to pay for a premium in order to use any one of them. However, I recently came across a free one which is called OffTo.net, used it for testing purposes, not only it does the above functionality, but also gains traction amongst the affiliate marketers across the Web.

After you signing up for this OffTo.net, you can start to cloak the links you want by supplying the affiliate URL, create customized short URL, and a title of it. Other than the condense of link, you can hide the link to affiliate program on the landing page. As you know, affiliate URLs tend to be long and ugly in general, and most people nowadays probably won’t click on an obvious affiliate link. However, if you wish to check the stats, i.e. how many people clicked on the link, as well as the actual referring page, you’ll need to remember the security code in order to access the stats page.

Meanwhile, there is a downside of this service. Once you signed up for this OffTo.net, you’ve opted in yourself an email subscription from the creator of this service, i.e. Jonathan Leger, whether or not it is his blog post or own program email notification, but you always can unsubscribe at any time if you want to.