The Shortest “Shorten URL” URL
Wow! Try saying that 5 times real fast. I have been doing a lot of research lately on domains and what makes them valid. I have been reading the RFC documents and searching the Internet for information. It’s amazing what you can find.
With the the proliferation of users on the Internet, domain names are getting longer and longer. It is estimated that all available 3 letter domain names are now taken. From the looks of it, this is only going to get worse. That said, long domain names can be difficult to use. It wouldn’t make sense to put my-new-company-domain-name.com on your business card would it? And certain social networks limit how much space you have. Like twitter only allows posts of 149 characters. If you have a long URL, much of what you want to say will have to be left off just so the link will fit within the 149 character limitation.
This is where “shorten url” websites come in really handy. By far, I would submit that bit.ly is the one I prefer over any other. The reasons are:
- it’s a shorter domain name than tinyurl.com
- it tracks traffic on the URLs I shorten
That being said, what if you are looking for the shortest “shorten URL” website possible. Do you know what it is? Well, you heard it here first.
Yep. That’s it! It is a TLD (Top Level Domain) similar to com, org, biz, & net. The difference is, they have set up a URL shortner application on the TLD location. How brilliant is that!? Not only is it the smallest available, it makes the most sense. I can hear the branding… “Where would you like TO visit?”
There is only one other TLD that would make more sense, that is if it existed. GO. That would be the best. What are your thoughts? Do you have a favorite “shorten url” url?
I think the thing I found most interesting is when I posted this url to bit.ly, it looks like it has been visited 180 times. But I am not certain how http://bit.ly/QTqOY is shorter than http://to/.
In conclusion, the Internet is for sure a very vast universe of 1s and 0s. There is still a lot to be discovered. Be sure to share your findings too. These things can be very interesting. Maybe I will work on putting together my own “shorten url” written in PHP. That would be a fun little project. What do you think?
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