bitly
bitly 2012 logo
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| Web address | bitly.com |
|---|---|
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Type of site
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URL shortening, bookmarks |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Bitly, Inc. |
| Launched | 2008 |
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Alexa rank
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 293 (April 2014[update])[1] |
| Current status | Active |
Bitly is a URL shortening service. The company Bitly, Inc. was established in 2008. It is privately held and based in New York City. Bitly shortens 600 million links per month,[2] for use in social networking, SMS, and email. Bitly makes money by charging for access to aggregate data created as a result of many people using the shortened URLs.
Products
The Bitly URL shortening service became popular on Twitter after it became the default URL shortening service on the website on May 6, 2009.[3] It was subsequently replaced by Twitter's own t.co service.[4]
The company behind Bitly launched a similar service, but for online videos, to determine what videos are the most popular on the web.[5]
The company offers a paid solution called Bitly Brand Tools that provides advanced branding features. Companies can use their own custom domains to generate shortened links; for example, The New York Times uses nyti.ms, and Pepsi uses pep.si. This allows the company to push brand awareness on services such as Twitter but use the Bitly engine to generate the shortened URLs and track marketing metrics.[6] Bitly Enterprise also has advanced analytics features and uses Bitly data to provide advanced social insight tools for companies and brands.
Technology
The company uses HTTP 301 redirects for its links. The shortcuts are intended to be permanent and cannot be changed once they are created. URLs that are shortened with the bitly service use the bit.ly domain or any other generic domain that the service offers.[citation needed]Information about any short bitly URL http://bit.ly/x is available at http://bit.ly/x+ (that is, the URL with a plus sign appended), for example http://bit.ly/QtQET+.[7] This allows users to see and check the long URL before visiting it.
Since October 12, 2010, users can automatically generate QR codes that, when scanned with a mobile QR code reader, automatically direct users to shortened links.[8]
On May 29, 2012, Bitly announced "Bitmarks", a new search feature, with enhanced public profiles and an iPhone app.[9]
Alternative domains
.ly is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Libya. In 2011, the bit.ly address was set to redirect to bitly.com.[clarification needed]
The .ly TLD is controlled by the Libyan government, which has previously removed one domain deemed incompatible with Muslim law.[10]
Any shortened URL generated with bitly can also be accessed by replacing that domain with any one of the following:
- bitly.com
- j.mp (registered to bitly, and using the top-level domain of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States).
- A custom domain, registered separately by the user and redirected to bitly's servers via the DNS record.
See also
References
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