Redirects are not ideal. With redirects it’s difficult for a visitor to determine whether the link points to a safe domain or a malicious one, but they have become a fact of social media life because of character counts.
Now with QR codes becoming more popular, the shortness of a URL determines the readability of the code. Long URLS generate QR codes that have more “blocks” and are therefore harder to scan at a distance and more prone to errors. Short URLs make QR codes that can be read from a moving car.
There are a hundred other technical reasons why I’d prefer anyone I’m working with to not use third-party URL shorteners like bit.ly or Hootsuite’s own ow.ly, but in the end it all boils down to accountability and analytics. Unfortunately they were the only act in town.
So the need to create a private URL shortening service became more and more clear.This site is a result of the fulfillment of that need. I hope it’s useful for you.
