Update! We have a winner. Cli.gs received 26% (88) votes with budurl.com coming in a close second. Congratulations!
URL shortening services were initially popular because web addresses started to get long and links would break when sent in an email. However, as microblogging services like Twitter have become popular, an increasing number of services and applications, including tracking & metrics, have been added to the basic URL shortening features.
Recently I polled followers of @leeodden on Twitter about favorite URL shortening services and received a great response. Thank you to all who responded! So many people replied that the following mini-review was created of 11 different URL shortening services showing which offer customization options, statistics, 301 redirect and some of the other unique services like export to CSV, bulk shortening and displaying ads to monetize the traffic to links that are shortened. Enjoy!
| Service | Customizable URL | Tracking | 301 Redirect | Unique Features |
 tinyurl.com |
Yes | No | Yes | Toolbar button |
 cli.gs |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Stats are private, real time and very detailed, geotarget URLs based on country of visitor, bookmarklet. |
 zi.ma |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Bulk URL shortening, registration not required for stats, download stats to CSV, bookmarklet, “popular” links page |
 bit.ly |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Saves copy of page linked to, tracks “conversations”, Twitter search fo uses of shortened URL, bookmarklet, import to Google spreadsheets |
 twurl.nl (aka tweetburner) |
No | Yes | No | Most popular items linked in last hour, bookmarklet, built in to Twhirl |
 is.gd |
No | No | Yes | Really bleeping short URLs, bookmarklet, Firefox plugin, built in to Twhirl |
 snipurl.com (aka Snurl Snipr Sn.im) |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Popular snips, snip search, RSS feed for snips, export to Excel, claim snips before you registered, edit snips |
 poprl.com |
No | Yes | No | Most POPular links, top domains, public stats, search, must register with Twitter account – boo |
 ad.vu (aka adjix) |
No* | Yes | No | Optional ads that share revenue, scheduled Tweeting, *use your own domain name as the link URLs, bookmarklet, option to use ad.vu |
 tr.im |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Uses Twitter or identi.ca info for login, bookmarklet |
 budurl.com |
Yes | Yes* | No** | Detailed, real time stats (*if you upgrade) this is the only service with fees but there is a free version, **uses 307 redirect |
I give an honorable mention to Minnesota based culld.us from Garrick Van Buren as well. Culld appears to work well with basic shortening features and is in cahoots with the Cullect feed aggregator.
There are others that were suggested like bloat.me and URL.ie but I wanted to keep this review to 11. If you really need a URL shortening, truncating or redirecting service fix, then check out this bigger list at Mashable: 90+ URL Shortening Services.
There’s also a great study of URL shortening services in terms of use and popularity on the cli.gs blog.
I do have a feature request for these services though. A URL shortening service that also posts to Delicious and/or StumbleUpon would be nice. A URL worth shortening is also often worth bookmarking and it would be a nice time saver to do both. Just a thought.
Now that you have an idea of the different types of URL shortening or redirecting services, perhaps you’ve tried a few and have a favorite? This leads us to our Reader Poll:
What is your favorite URL shortening service?
- cli.gs (26%, 88 Votes)
- budurl.com (20%, 70 Votes)
- tinyurl.com (18%, 62 Votes)
- zi.ma (12%, 42 Votes)
- bit.ly (6%, 22 Votes)
- is.gd (6%, 21 Votes)
- adjix.com (4%, 13 Votes)
- tr.im (3%, 9 Votes)
- tweetburner (2%, 8 Votes)
- snipurl.com (1%, 5 Votes)
- poprl.com (1%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 343
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