There are plenty of url shorteners,

What do you intend to shorten? for example clickbank urls may not work with certain shorteners,

They are used to tidy and make the link look cleaner, They can also be used for tracking purposes,

If i have missed anything i am sorry,

Why not use a 301 redirect and setup your own shortener? You can name it anyway you wants it to be.

bit.ly domain name is blacklisted by Spamhaus. You may not want to use it in your emails ;-)

you will find this post usefulHow To: Create Your Own URL Shortener - The Next Web

But you can do it without scripts, buy the shortest domain you can and add it to your hosting account, then add a unique id at the end of it for each link you want mask. Like this... h**p://shorturl.com/go/2 then use a 301 redirect.for your affiliate link.

(/go is a directory you installed on your server /2 is a particular link. (for example)

To add a new link just add a new file to the directory i.e /3. Each file contains a small snippet of php code that is the redirect. Like this....
<?php header("Location:"); exit(); ?>

so the line of code would look like this in a file

<?php header("Location:http://your-affiliate-hoplink-here"); exit(); ?>

so when someone clicks on your link... h**p://shorturl.com/go/2

they get redirected to...

http://your-affiliate-hoplink-here

The 301 can be done via cpanel in your hosting admin.

I forgot to add, never use bit.ly or any other url shortener, these services have been ruined by spammers. It is best not to use third-party shorteners at all but if you really have no choice use I believe you best choice would be goo.gl

Limited space is one good example, Twitter coming to mind. But Twitter has its own shortener now.

The problem with using them for cosmetic purposes is that a lot of people think a very short URL with an indecipherable string of random alphanumeric characters has a cosmetic advantage over ANY long URL. There are longer but more meaningful URLs that are going to be more compelling and engender more trust.

When I use URL shorteners, I prefer going with the option to have a custom string rather than the random alphanumerics.

Short links are prettier and can mask a link easy. THere is also ad.ly i think

I use PrettyLink and I highly recommend it. Some sites won't allow bit.ly although it is a pretty good tracking services. I have just started posted youtube videos with descriptions containing a link that I shortened with bit.ly. But for everything else besides YouTube, I would recommend a different link shortener such as pretty links. (Then you can shorten your links with your domain, and it has pretty good tracking information too).

Previously when I first got started, I use pretty link wordpress plugin. Had tried bit.ly but having problem with them. After I am back in IM, now I am using paid version known as click.org, recommend by my fellow warrior.

i definetly recommend pretty link. I use all of the time. And plus using a shortener masked with your domain is the safeist way anyway. You can track hits, geo location, and group links together. It is really good to use inside of your WP dashboard.

clickmeter.com is a shortner I used at first now I have a full tracking software.

The shortners are used when links are banned from certain sites or to track clicks.

It's good to track everything otherwise you're running blind and it'll get you no where, but I would also suggest a premium tracker like quality click control.

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