Recently, I stumbled across a Reddit post where a freelancer graphic designer found himself in probably the most embarrassing situation that I can think of for a freelancer to fall into. They were working on a poster where their client wanted to include QR codes but, didn’t have their URLs set up yet. From my own experience this isn’t too uncommon as projects may have many different on-staff and/or freelance professionals all working on separate schedules without direct communication with each other. So, just to have something other then a placeholder to work with on their project they used a QR code of a meme instead before they got a hold of the real URL. This might not have been a problem if the director did not use an earlier version of the poster as the final print! I find this humorous in that I could find myself in the same situation in my own line of work and that this problem could have been easily avoided.
We can break down the disaster to find the core of the issue and attempt to solve it. If we ignore the lapse in communication between the project director and the freelancer we find that the core of the disaster is the URL embedded in the QR code. Without a URL, the freelancer couldn’t start meaningful work but, he wasn’t given one until later in the project. This is where link shorteners may be useful but, its important to know the different methodologies behind different link shortening techniques.
Basic Link Shortening
If you’re working on a project and need something free, quick and aren’t focused on tracking your clicks then you might be interested in a basic link shortener. Probably one of the earliest services on the link shortening scene would be TinyURL.com. TinyURL.com is pretty basic but, proves itself to be fast and easy to use as you do not need to sign up with an account to shorten links. However, without an account you cannot manage or redirect your links to a different destination URL. Also, since TinyURl.com is so fast and has such a low barrier to entry the domain has been abused by bots. This means that if you use a TinyURL.com link in your emails, the link might be blocked by security software.
If you need to manage your links with an account then you should probably look to what many people consider the industry leader in link shortening and tracking: Bitly. Bitly is useful in quickly making shortened links and offers many improvements over TinyURL. First of all, it allows you to tag and filter all of your URLs so you can quickly and easily organize your links based on the projects you’re working on. Also, with 1000 free URLs a month it’s unlikely you will run out of links to use in your projects. Bitly also lets you have basic URL tracking so you can have a rudimentary idea of how much reception your project has. However, Bitly comes with two major downsides. First of all, you cannot edit a link’s destination on the free plan. Therefore, Bitly wouldn’t help in the situation where the wrong version of a project gets published. Also, Bitly only lets you use their own URL for link shortening in their free tier. If you’re using shortened links in a professional project, using a Bitly URL may muddy your overall branding. This is also a problem in that Bitly has been abused in the past and some security software may block Bitly links.
Link Shortening Using Your Own Subdomain
Having security software blocking potential customers to a product or service they might be interested in is definitely not something that I would call a smart business move. Therefore, I consider using your own subdomain to be essential when shortening links. Bitly does have this feature but, only for their paid tiers. Thankfully, there are free services that allow you to use your own subdomain when shortening links.
Rebrandly is probably Bitly’s most impressive competitor. Rebrandly has fantastic tools that allow you to quickly make and manage your URLs with ease. For example, their Chrome extension allows you to right click any link on the web, shorten it and copy the shortened URL to your clipboard instantly. Rebrandly also allows you to internally rename, change the URL’s slug and retarget your ULRs for free. When you’re working on a project that requires a QR code, you can quickly create a QR code in their web app with ease. Rebrandly’s free link tracking statistics is far more expansive then Bitly’s free offering allowing you to see where your clicks are coming from and what user agent they have. One downside to Rebrandly compared to Bitly, however, is the fact that you cannot tag URLs for organization in the free tier. This would be more of a problem if Rebrandly didn’t cap your total link amount to 500 URLs in the free tier. With only 500 URLs available to you, you’ll have to be thoughtfully organized so you don’t remove mission critical URLs when you inevitably try to make space in your account for more links.
Short.io is a relatively new service that has a leg up on Rebrandly in that they offer 1000 links at their free tier. They even offer link tagging for your organizational needs as well. If you need more than 1000 links I feel their paid tiers are reasonably priced. And, much like Rebrandly, they allow you to connect your own subdomain to their service. However, while their web app is fine, they don’t offer goodies like a Chrome extension like what I’ve gotten used to with Rebrandly. Regardless, I’ve decided to use Short.io for my personal link shortening needs thanks to their generous quantity of links in their free tier and their ability to use your own subdomain with your shortened links.
Hosting Your Own Link Shortener
If you have a VPS and are willing to dedicate some space on it purely for link shortening you could take advantage of the free software that surpasses all of the ones previously mentioned: YOURLS. With YOURLS you have absolutely no limits to how many links you can create and you can track them with ease. There even is an official Docker image so, setup and transferring the YOURLS image to different servers is a breeze. Sure, YOURLS interface looks almost as dated as TinyURL.com but, it’s hard to argue with a free product that works as efficiently as YOURLS. In my opinion, YOURLS would be the go-to choice to shorten URLs but, I know not everyone has a VPS or just doesn’t want to deal with managing them so, the options mentioned above are still relevant for most people.
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