Now that the Google URL shortener has stopped working, website owners, bloggers, and marketers are trying to find a service that can serve the same purpose. There are endless solutions but there’s a challenge in finding the best link shortener for your website. Short URLs can be used to promote your product and services on social media, so go through our list of best link shorteners.
Why Should You Use URL Shorteners?
The best link shortener will help you create a short, unique URL that redirects the users to the website of your desire. The URL contains your website name and a combination of random letters. This is helpful in situations that have random long URLs, and you can shorten the URL for sharing it on social media platforms. Another reason for using short URLs is that it allows you to track analytics and clicks through the URLs.
Some of the best link shorteners also provide the option for customizing your shortened URLs to multiple ads or to post content on multiple social media channels.
Top Link Shorteners
There are tons of link shorteners to choose from in the market, but not all of them can provide a good user experience. During our research, we found only a handful of tools worth mentioning. So, here’s our pick for the top link shorteners.
1. Ow.ly
Ow.ly is a URL shortener offered by Hootsuite, one of the best social media management platforms. You can access Ow.ly directly from the Hootsuite dashboard. The advantage of using Ow.ly is accessing metrics on links along with other social networking sites.
This URL shortener is also supported on mobile phones and users can boost their ROI. This is one of the best link shorteners and it is available on both free and paid plans. All you have to do is create an account with Hootsuite and utilize the benefits it has to offer.
Features:
- URL performance analytics
- Link targeting
- Rank monitoring
- Trackable short links
- Mobile supported platform
2. TinyURL
TinyURL is one of the best link shorteners and you can use the tool anonymously. These shortening tools can customize the URLs, fast redirection, and several other benefits. Plus, it can be used by any user.
There’s no account creation required, you just have to open the website and choose the link you want to shorten. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer data analytics from your site, but you can get other features if you subscribe to the paid plan.
Features:
- Quick redirection
- Anonymous usage
- Easy-to-use
- Can customize the shortened URL
3. Bitly
Bitly is without a doubt one of the best URL shorteners and the reason why it’s so famous is because of the features it has to offer. The platforms can shorten all the URLs and it’ll add the “bit.ly” domain.
Bitly is a partially free tool and it can help in shortening limited URLs without creating an account. Bitly also provides users with a dashboard where you can track over 10 geographical locations in real-time and provide significant ease of use.
Additionally, it can customize over 50 URLs while also providing data on the click-through rate per link. It’s essential for companies that want to keep track of the results they’re getting from each content. Plus it can be integrated with tools such as Zapier or TweetDeck.
Features:
- Connect custom domains
- Analytical dashboard
- Audience intelligence
- Custom URL
- Fully-responsive
- Cloud-hosting
- URL retargeting
4. Rebrandly
Rebrandly is another best link shortener tool and it can be used to build short links on various social media platforms. The free plan of Rebrandly offers the use of five custom domains that you can customize for your sites.
You can also track the click rate of your links and the data associated with those links. In the free version, users can only create 500 brand links. The tool offers a ClickMeter tool, which allows the creation of new short links and mutual sharing.
Features:
- API access
- Can add emojis on short links
- Private reporting
- Custom reports
- Click tracking
- 100+ app integration
5. T2M
Another best link shortener is T2M. The users are sure to love the usability of the link-shortening software. There are two different dashboards that help in tracking the URL. One helps in location analytics and the other helps in keeping track of devices or platforms.
T2M has dedicated resources, meaning the server response will be 100 dedicated to a single user. This helps in making sure that you can create short branded URLs that will help you get more clicks or even decide where and when the links should work.
T2M is one of the best link shortener solutions for businesses:
- No spam policy
- Full-scale analytics
- Unlimited API
- No-expiry URL
- CSV import
- Auto-generation QR Code
- Bulk URL creation
Conclusion: Best Link Shortener
Using a URL shortener service can help you create shorter and cleaner, user-friendly URLs. Plus, you get additional metrics analytics with the tools. If you’re sharing posts, get the best URL shortener for your blog. Here’s an outline of our guide to the best link shortener:
- Pixelfy: Free trials that offer a taste of all premium features
- Ow.ly – Popular among Hootsuite users
- TinyURL: A simple to use free tool with link customization
- Bitly – Perfect tool for freelancers, small to mid-sized businesses
- Rebrandly – This allows you to use a custom domain for free
- T2M – Users can get a short URL plus a QR code.