I have been using bit.ly for many years as a link shortener. Some links can become really long, and so a link shortener can make it shorter and easier to use, especially for web apps like Twitter.
The really cool thing about bit.ly, was the fact that one could combine several shortened links into a bundle, which then had its own short link.
One thing about bit.ly is that one could change the default short link it created for your long link to something more readable, e.g. http://bit.ly/Ad5sYtvE could be changed to http://bit.ly/MoonBlog (these links do not actually exist, and if they do, it is by accident).
So, I would take the bit.ly bundle link (which now pointed to several links that I added to the bundle), and shortened that to something useful like http://bit.ly/NCT_Intro, which is readable. However, bit.ly changed the way they do things, and did away with the bundle idea and converted all bundles to tags. Now, when you create a short link (url), you can tag it, and if you click on one of the tags, bit.ly would display all urls that are tagged by the selected tag.
There is one HUGE difference between the bundles and the tags. The bundles had a url that was publicly available and could be shared with others not on bit.ly. The tags CAN’T! To me, that is the biggest drawback to the way bit.ly changed the way they do things.
So, I have started looking for a new service that could accomplish this.
I came upon this web page with some alternatives. The writer suggests Krunchd, HiperURL, and MultiURL. I tried each one of them, and I am not happy with any of them.
Krunchd doesn’t work at all. I created a shortened url, and clicked on the url. I could see the url being used in the url/link edit bar, but within a few short moments it took me to a company’s website without ever redirecting to the links I created. This is a HUGE FAIL! It then offers you the opportunity to edit the links that you added to the shortened link. You simply request to modify the url, and it sends you an email with a list of shortened urls that you have created, with an edit link for each of them. At least, that is what it is supposed to do. I received an email alright! BUT, with no links next to the the headers. It is supposed to have the “Title of Krunch:”, the “URL:,” and the “Edit URL:”. All these headers were empty. BIG FAIL! It gets a 0/10.
HiperURL can combine urls into a shorter url, but it has no option of creating a readable url. It gets a 5/10. The reason it only gets a 5 is that it doesn’t make use of the names of links and just displays the links.
Finally, MultiURL is not working either. After entering the links and sign up info, it displays the following:
“Fatal error: Call to a member function num_rows() on a non-object in /home/multiurl/public_html/system/libraries/Session.php on line 209″
That is a HUGE FAIL! It gets a 0/10.
There is the Google shortener, but it cannot combine nor rename shortened links, so it only gets 3/10.
So, while bit.ly had it all, they would’ve been in the 8-10/10 range, it now gets a 5/10 simply because it still provides analytics. Without the analytics it would drop below 5/10.
If you know of any GOOD url shorteners and combiners, please let me know!
Tagged: Computers and Internet
Cerebrating about Life 
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