URL Shortening Services, The Ultimate List

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We use URL shortening services on daily basis, they are extremely useful in Internet conversations, let it forum threads, IM chats, etc. These services are also life-savers in communication channel where you are limited to specific no. of characters per session – Twitter for instance. Some even use them to hide away affiliate links they shared or bypass firewalls that block websites according to URLs.

As long as they turn your long whining URL short, it’s a good job. TinyURL is perhaps the famous amongst, but it’s cool to know more so we get to swap from one to another (if you ever get bored). Here we’ve compiled 68 URL shortening services on the Internet that’s still working. Why the ‘still working‘? Some services were forced to shut down thanks to spammers. Together with the list, we thought you might also want a list of bookmarklet-supported URL Shortening services in a Firefox bookmark file so you can shorten any URL on the fly with Firefox. Everything after jump.

68 URL Shorteners

  Service Name After shortened (sample) More Options? Bookmarklet
  A2N http://a2n.eu/tech
No
No
  Beam.to http://beam.to/hongkiat
No
No
  B65 http://b65.us/28x
Yes
No
  CanURL http://canurl.com/s0hui
No
No
  Decent URL http://hongkiat.decenturl.com/tech
No
  DigBig http://digbig.com/4wxab
Yes
  Doiop http://doiop.com/l3a46l
No
No
  Dwarfurl http://dwarfurl.com/9ca0c
Yes
  EasyURL http://easyurl.net/55a7a
Yes
No
  EzURL http://www.ezurl.eu/1
Yes
No
  FhURL http://fhurl.com/b10024
Yes
No
  Fly2 http://fhurl.com/b10024
Yes
No
  Is.gd http://is.gd/eMM
No
No
  X.se http://www.x.se/xskb
No
No
  LiteURL http://www.liteurl.net/a9sh
Yes
No
  lnk.in http://lnk.in/5z5f
Yes
  Metamark http://xrl.us/bkd33
Yes
No
  Minilien http://minilien.com/?nhSqU4SkQp
No
No
  MooURL http://moourl.com/woot/?moo=f9cmd
Yes
  MyURL http://myurl.in/sSBTd
Yes
No
  NanoRef http://nanoref.com/hongkiat/AvF62w
Yes
No
  Ne1 http://you.ne1.net
Yes
No
  Not Long http://hongkiat.notlong.com
No
No
  Nutshell URL http://nutshellurl.com/1yb
No
No
  Redirx http://redirx.com/?0jxn
No
No
  RubyURL http://rubyurl.com/1CO1
No
  Shim http://yourname.shim.net
Yes
No
  Shorl http://shorl.com/gabrafihobidra
Yes
  ShortenURL http://www.shortenurl.com/6thpj
No
No
  Shoter Link http://shorterlink.com/?ABC123
No
No
  Shortlinks http://shortlinks.co.uk/kkx
No
No
  ShortURL http://hongkiat.shorturl.com
Yes
No
  Short URL http://url.lotpatrol.com/?x=892
No
No
  Get Shorty http://get-shorty.com/shorty/hongkiat/
Yes
No
  Shrinkr http://shrinkr.com/13
No
No
  ShrinkURL http://shrinkurl.us/vDC
Yes
No
  SHurl http://shurl.net/afw
Yes
No
  SimURL http://simurl.com/wugses
No
  Sitelutions http://ByInter.com/you
No
No
  SnipURL http://snipurl.com/28bo6
Yes
  ShredURL http://shredurl.com/4de
No
No
  Smallr http://smallr.com/35m
No
  StartURL http://starturl.com/gsukp
Yes
No
  Tight URL http://tighturl.com/7vk
No
  Tiny Link http://tinylink.com/?jqdZqSlzo4
No
No
  TinyURL http://tinyurl.com/6
No
  TraceURL http://traceurl.com/rdS?r=1507&l=15
Yes
No
  Ulimit http://hongkiat.euro.st
Yes
No
  URL.co.uk http://url.co.uk/f2ktz
No
No
  URL Cutter http://urlcutter.com?39024
Yes
  URLcut http://urlcut.com/1pxhz
No
No
  URL Hawk http://urlhawk.com/5k9
Yes
No
  URl.ie http://url.ie/dkx
No
No
  Url Tea http://urltea.com/367u
No
  U76 http://u76.org/o2
No
  WapURL http://wapurl.co.uk/?CGL8HL3
Yes
  Xil http://xil.in/2323/
Yes
No
  YATUC http://yatuc.com/b$t
Yes
  Yep It http://yep.it/l4_74e
Yes
No
  6URL http://www.6URL.com/1P77
Yes
No
  301URL http://301url.com/K
Yes
No
  URL Pie http://www.urlpire.com/?QQATP
No
No
  Pi URL http://piurl.com/5
No
  URLvi http://urlvi.be/kzawc
Yes
  Shrtnd http://shrtnd.com/444/
Yes
No
  FwdURL http://fwdurl.net/258
No
No
  G8L http://g8l.us/8uq
No
No
         

We believe this isn’t close to a complete list. If you got more, we appreciate a heads up.

Bookmarklets for Firefox

[Firefox only] We compiled all URL shorterning services that supports bookmarklet into a bookmark file so you don’t have to. Download shortcut.html (right-click, save as), import it into your Firefox browser as bookmark and start to shorten any URL with any services that serve your mood on the fly. For those who are not familiar with Firefox bookmark importing, here’s a small guide.

How to import for Firefox?

Step 1

Download shortcut.html. In Firefox, go to Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks.

Step 2

In Bookmark Manager, go to File Import. Select ‘From File’, look for shortcut.html and click Ok.

bookmark manager

List of URL shorterners should appear as a folder under your Bookmark Toolbar. If it does not, most probably is because you did not enabled Bookmark Toolbar on Firefox.

bookmark toolbar

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Posted by hongkiat in Web 2.0 , at 05.12.08

Tags: , ,

Comments

  1. shoabn May 13th, 2008

    u missed mine http://curlit.in

    :)

    Reply
  2. Syahid A. May 13th, 2008

    Really lovely collection HK. TinyURL will always be the most remembered because it is one of the pioneers of URL shortening.

    Reply
  3. Kay May 13th, 2008

    What a complete list!

    Reply
  4. Kay May 13th, 2008

    What a complete list! Dugg!

    Reply
  5. Ask Bjørn Hansen May 13th, 2008

    Hi there,

    Nice list. :-)

    Metamark does have a bookmarklet, look for “Bookmarklets” on http://metamark.net/

    – ask

    Reply
  6. Fachia May 13th, 2008

    I think I know one of the most uses url shortening service in my country, Indonesia, it is http://urlcantik.com/ but I think it is only Indonesian use this free url shortening service. But it may be so easy for everyone to shorten their URL there.

    Reply
  7. Steve Yu May 14th, 2008

    That is a very looooong lists!!!!

    Reply
  8. BoltClock May 14th, 2008

  9. A.C. May 22nd, 2008

    A very simple one I use very often is brrr.at

    Best,
    Cordobo

    Reply
  10. Pwenton Dwenton May 23rd, 2008

    niiiiiiiiiice
    thumbs up

    Reply
  11. Chin May 23rd, 2008

    awesome list

    Reply
  12. Bob Schriver July 7th, 2008

    Hey. I’d just like to give you a heads up on a URL shortener I’ve created, http://½.WS (also available at http://onehalf.ws). It uses internationalized domain names to bring you the shortest URL’s possible.

    Thanks for creating this awesome list, and, just so you know, is.gd does have a bookmarklet, its about halfway down this page http://is.gd/instructions.php.

    Reply
  13. Bill P July 9th, 2008

    GR8 list, thanks for th input…
    http://www.urlcover.com is also another great resource to use when it come to short url services. It provides a simple and easy to use short url creator for free url redirection with options to add expiration date and password protect feature. :)

    Thanks!

    Reply
  14. Nick August 4th, 2008

    I’m not sure if you intended to be the authority on all the url shorteners out there, but I feel I ought to add my own for completeness: http://pnt.me/

    Thanks for keeping up the list.

    Reply
  15. BromptonWeb August 5th, 2008

    Here another one that very tiny..

    http://1iny.com

    Cheers

    Reply
  16. Wekiki August 16th, 2008

    Wow! That was a great list! http://sn.vc also a great one to be include.

    Reply
  17. Steve August 24th, 2008

    There’s another one at http://www.nipurl.com.

    Reply
  18. Ronny Johnsen October 12th, 2008

    Have difficulties with never-ending URLs? Diggurl will solve all your problems.

    Visit http://www.diggurl.com to create shortened/redirected URLs to any long URL.

    # Free! No registration required.
    # Manage your shortened URLs.
    # Set temporary download links and protect them with password.
    # Hide your URLs from search engines and bots.
    # Cleaner bookmarks in your web browsers.
    # Continuous URLs in emails.
    # AJAX interface;
    # Bulk URL shortening;
    # Password-protected URLs;
    # Temporary URLs;
    # Custom tags;
    # Custom tags for bulk URLs (automatically assigned tags like tag1, tag2, tag3 and so on);
    # Redirects statistic – referer domain, referer page, visitor’s IP (+ link to geographical information about each visitor), date;
    # URLs and hits statistics can be seen even without registration (IP-based authorization);
    # Registered users: edit/delete URLs;
    # Mass upload URLs from file;
    # Export links to CSV file;

    Reply
  19. jiri Kutil December 1st, 2008

    Put multiple links into one short link

    http://1link.in

    Reply
  20. qAmp December 7th, 2008

  21. Vitaliy Berdinskikh December 25th, 2008

    B65.us is down

    Reply
  22. Joseph January 8th, 2009

    There is one at http://www.foco.us/shorturl/ to.

    Reply
  23. Dee January 31st, 2009

    Free Site Redirect and Short URL Service

    Provides Free Short URL and Site Redirection Service.

    * Free Short URL’s
    * Free Unlimited Redirects
    * Free Counter
    * Free E-mail Notifications
    * Links Never Expire (For as long as the service is available)
    * No Registration Required
    * No ADS
    * No Pop Ups
    * Instant Redirect – Transparent to the user

    ** No Adult Sites Allowed

    Web 2.0 Short URL Service.

    Short URL Service Site

    Reply
  24. Stree.Walker February 11th, 2009

    Thats really awesome, teens of url shortening list, so i bookmarked, i can choose the cooolest one,
    try notlong.com -> it’s a subdomain-like url shortening,

    Reply
  25. gesf February 26th, 2009

    … and this one: http://urlms.com/

    Reply
  26. url360 March 9th, 2009

    not forgetting this URL Shortening service by url360.me

    Reply
  27. Jack March 19th, 2009

    You missed http://clockurl.com

    Cheers

    Reply
  28. jacksoking March 25th, 2009

    http://www.1083.cc is a good website to short your url too.

    Reply
  29. Mate April 6th, 2009

    Did you see LongURL.NET (http://my.longurl.net)?

    It is web service for URL shortening but you can put your own ad at the top. You can put ad link for your site or some affiliate link code. You can also buy cheap target traffic (ad showing by keywords)

    http://my.longurl.net have some features which is unique and is not suported in other url shortening services. You can put your own ads at the top of the redirected page. You can also put your ads on URLs of other users. You can install longurl plugin at
    your blog or forum and get money for advertising on their network.

    Reply
  30. Jimboco April 9th, 2009

    There’s also: http://pt2.me

    Reply
  31. Michael Johnson April 16th, 2009

    Nice list, i usually use http://PonyURL.com it does the job fine for me and i have had good experience with using their service.

    Reply
  32. open-tube April 23rd, 2009

    Nice list. Though there are so many tinyurl.com has captures 75% of the market share

    http://open-tube.com/top-5-url-shortening-services-market-share/

    Reply
  33. ShortenURL April 27th, 2009

    This is a nice list. I prefer using tinyURL & budURL for general purpose and bit.ly for the twitter.

    Reply
  34. John Howard May 8th, 2009

    Nice list, but not exhaustive. I’d like to see http://z.pe listed. It is shorter than any of the service here

    Reply
  35. Mowa May 15th, 2009

    Great list! But there’s also http://veeox.com

    Reply
  36. Mike May 16th, 2009

    You may also find URLMorph.com useful too.

    Reply
  37. Vera J May 16th, 2009

    Big fan of http://www.lurl.me, use it for loadsa stuff and friends I told using it too. Just plain simple straightforward. Good job!

    Reply
  38. Chloe May 17th, 2009

    What a great, handy list.

    Here’s another one: http://www.path.to

    Reply
  39. JwS May 19th, 2009

    Hi,

    You forgot one especially designed for ADULT urls

    http://www.pr0n.net

    Thanks

    Reply
  40. David May 23rd, 2009

    What about http://tr.im

    Reply
  41. Nick May 25th, 2009

    Snipie URL shortening for iPhone and iPod Touch
    visit snipie.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch for instructions

    Reply
  42. Carl June 10th, 2009

    I use Squeerl.

    Reply
  43. Jay June 12th, 2009

    I will show you how to earn 500$=?day home business reviews

    Reply
  44. Jay June 12th, 2009

    I will show you how to earn 500$+/day
    home business reviews

    Reply
  45. off2url.com June 20th, 2009

    Quite an impressive list! But you’re right, it isn’t complete. There’s off2url.com, another free service

    Reply

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