URL Shortener Super Tour
An A to Z of brief redirects.
July 2010 | All this does is send you on an alphabetical trip from one URL shortener to another then back to my site. Sometimes you can't even see where you're going or where you've been, but below are links to all the URLs involved. Will probably break soon. Has probably been done before. Not my fault if your browser chokes.
Update, October 2010: Last month lnk.gd decided my link was spam and just this month bloat.me, canurl.com, rurl.org and xr.com disappeared. Beware of shitty web services! Experiment officially over.
Update, October 2011: Almost all gone! The dead list: durl dies, easyuri.com is gone, is.gd thinks I violated their T&C, krunchd.com has PHP errors, pnt.me gave up, snipr.com killed my link, and yep.it did as well. Oof! Barely a year later and almost half the services no longer work.
http://keaggy.com/x/usst
Start here! The /x/ dir on my site is my own URL shortener, running
YOURLS.
http://adjix.com/4ev2
A | First stop. Basic service. Lets you choose to have ads or not. Weird.
http://bloat.me/yRbS | DEAD
B | Silly name.
http://canurl.com/5Lk5eT | DEAD
C | They donate ad profits to cancer charities.
http://durl.me/24y9q | DEAD
D | Simple. Works. Has API and Bookmarklet.
http://easyuri.com/c300b | DEAD
E | Keyword option here too.
http://fart.ly/ygngxw | NOW REDIRECTS INCORRECTLY
F | Arguably the best shortener there is due to the unique audio feature.
http://goo.gl/RDzx
G | I thought this didn't work with non-Google sites but
this page has a working form.
http://hurl.no/S1F
H | Of the seemingly dozens of hurl.__ shortener domains there once were, this is one of the last ones left.
http://is.gd/dwU1t | KILLED MY LINK
I | One of the more popular services.
http://j.mp/9zLshB
J | Super-short URLs. Run by
bit.ly, which I didn't use for B because the main service won't let you send people to another redirect.
http://krunchd.com/8de7 | BROKEN
K | Lets you redirect to multiple URLs.
http://lnk.gd/a43 | MARKED AS SPAM
L | Lets you manage your URLs. Pauses on an ad page in use.
http://moourl.com/t5dwn
M | They call themselves "the web's cutest URL shortening service."
http://usst.notlong.com/
N | Uses custom subdomains.
http://ow.ly/2cQ3t
O | One of the few that uses CAPTCHA to foil spammers.
http://pnt.me/V4fb21 | DEAD
P | Yet another shortener made by a small studio.
http://www.qicute.com/?usst
Q | Doesn't strip the www. Kind of a spammy site that requires you to create an account, but lets you manage and edit your URLs. This is where
dispostable email comes in handy.
http://rurl.org/2u61 | DEAD
R | Has an API for developers.
http://snipr.com/zidu4 | KILLED MY LINK
S | Lets you create an optional account to manage your links or use their API.
http://tinyurl.com/23qz9v9
T | The big daddy grandfather of URL shorteners. Acquired the first shortener I can think of,
makeashorterlink.com. Funny how tinyurl creates one of the longest URLs of all the services. The preview feature is nice.
http://urlzen.com/21z7 | DEAD
U | One guy's URL shortener.
http://usst.vdirect.com/ | DEAD
V | Uses subdomains. Requires you to create account. Spammy and stupid. Might throw pop-up ads. It also wraps the destination site in frames. Lamest of all of these.
http://way.to/usst
W | Polluted by ads and crap. Multiple domains to choose from.
http://xr.com/usst | DEAD
X | Basic shortener with account and keyword options.
http://yep.it/maskbc | KILLED MY LINK
Y | Also creates long URLs.
http://zipmyurl.com/WBddh | DEAD
Z | Last one!
http://www.keaggy.com/urlshortenersupertour/finish/