TinyURL is a
URL shortening
URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using a redirect which links to the web page that has ...
web service, which provides short aliases for redirection of long
URLs.
Kevin Gilbertson, a
web developer
A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used f ...
, launched the service in January 2002
as a way to post links in
newsgroup
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically disti ...
postings which frequently had long, cumbersome addresses. TinyURL was the first notable URL shortening service and is one of the oldest still currently operating.
Service
The TinyURL homepage includes a form which is used to submit a long URL for shortening. For each URL entered, the server adds a new alias in its
hashed database and returns a short URL. According to the website, the shortened URLs will never expire.
TinyURL offers an
API which allows applications to automatically create short URLs.
Short URL aliases are seen as useful because they are easier to write down, remember or distribute. They also fit in text boxes with a limited number of characters allowed. Some examples of limited text boxes are
IRC channel
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
topics, email signatures,
microblogs (such as
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, which notably limits all posts to first 140 and later 280 characters), certain printed newspapers (such as
''.net'' magazine or even
''Nature''), and
email client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
s that impose
line breaks on messages at a certain length.
Starting in 2008, TinyURL allowed users to create custom, more meaningful aliases. This means that a user can create descriptive URLs rather than a randomly generated address. For example,
https://tinyurl.com/wp-tinyurl leads to the Wikipedia article about the website.
Preview short URLs
To preview the full URL from the short TinyURL, the user can visit TinyURL first and enable previews as a default browser cookie setting or copy and paste the short URL into the browser address bar, and prepend the short
tinyurl.com/x with
preview.tinyurl.com/x. Another preview feature is not well documented at the TinyURL site, but the alternative shortened URL with preview capability is also offered to shortcut creators as an option at the time of the creation of the link.
Impact
Similar services
The popularity of TinyURLs influenced the creation of at least 100 similar websites. Most are simply domain alternatives while some offer additional features.
Twitter
People posting on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
often made extensive use of shortened URLs to keep their
tweets within the service-imposed 140-character limit. Twitter used TinyURL until 2009, before switching to
Bit.ly
Bitly is a URL shortening service and a link management platform. 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, for use in social networking, SMS, and ...
. Currently, Twitter uses its own
t.co domain for this purpose. Though Twitter has extended its limit to 280 characters, it automatically shortens links longer than 31 characters using its
t.co domain.
TinyURL-whacking
The TinyURL method of allocating shorter web addresses has inspired an exploration activity known as TinyURL-whacking. Random letters and numbers can be appended after the first forward slash
tinyurl.com/, in an attempt to find and reveal interesting sites without finding and copying a previously known referrer's link.
[''New Scientist'', vol. 179, issue 2404, 19 July 2003, page 84]
See also
*
URL redirection
URL redirection, also called URL forwarding, is a World Wide Web technique for making a web page available under more than one URL address. When a web browser attempts to open a URL that has been redirected, a page with a different URL is opened ...
*
URL shortening
URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using a redirect which links to the web page that has ...
*
Bitly
Bitly is a URL shortening service and a link management platform. 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, for use in social networking, SMS, a ...
References
External links
* {{Official website, www.tinyurl.com
URL
URL-shortening services