How does FeedMagnet handle link shorteners like TinyURL?
view all questions in Content SourcesHow link shorteners like TinyURL work
Twitter and other social sites limit the number of characters you can use to post an update. Twitter limits you to 140 characters - and while there is surprisingly a lot that can be said in 140 characters, it can be difficult to fit in a link along with your text. Link URLs can be 140 characters all by themselves—and long URLs are usually pretty ugly too.
This problem spawned the creation of link shorteners—tools that let you condense a long web address into a handful of characters. TinyURL was one of the first link-shortening tools. Now there are a ton: bit.ly, ow.ly, and budurl are just a few of the dozens available for you to use.
URLs need to be expanded
While the short URLs created by the tools are tiny and much easier to look at, they don't give you any information about the link itself. It could point to a photo on Flickr, a video on YouTube, an article on Wikipedia, or some shady site that you don't want to visit. On most sites, there is no way to tell what you are going to get until you click.
FeedMagnet solves this problem by expanding the URLs for you and showing the expanded URL. The domain name is always shown. If the web address is super long, we'll cut off the trailing (usually less significant) part of the address when displaying it. If we discover that the expanded URL is a photo or video, we'll just show you the photo/video directly. If it is a link to a website, you can see the name of the site, and it's icon, to help you decide if you want to click or not.
We even keep your metrics in place by keeping the actual link pointing to the shortened URL.