Google, bit.ly Heat up URL Shortening Race

No one likes a long URL name, least of all Twitter. Making URLs shorter is becoming a booming business, even if the means to profit remains hazy. Both Google and bit.ly have new versions of their URL shorteners out this week that do more than just make long URLs short. Datamation checks out what’s new.

Short is hot. The simple URL shorterner utilities have gotten a lot of attention — good and bad — as the de facto means to share Web site addresses on services like Twitter. This week, both bit.ly, one of the most popular URL shortener services, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), made new releases in the area.

Unlike bit.ly, tinyURL and others, the new Google URL Shortener is not a standalone service. Rather, it’s specifically designed as a feature for the Google Toolbar and Feedburner — a content syndication service (blogs, podcasts, etc.) that Google acquired two years ago. Like bit.ly and others, Google’s goo.gl service shrinks the size of long Web addresses into a few characters, making them easier to share, tweet, e-mail and link to with friends and associates.

Google explained in a blog post that the new service will let Feedburner publishers automatically send shortened links to Twitter. URL shorteners have become critical in the world of Twitter, given the 140 character limit the site imposes on each tweet.

Separately, bit.ly announced the beta release of bit.ly Pro. The idea behind the service is to let publishers and bloggers include a bit of their name for easy identification in shortened URLs that point to their sites. So, for example, a bit.ly shortened link to a New York Times article would include “nyti” in the link name.

Read the full story at Datamation:


Google Adds URL Shortener, Bit.ly Goes Pro