URL Shortenings

Ever had a long long long URL that you had to send out to a friend on IM or email? It was so long that it stopped being a URL? A good example of these types of URL are shopping site URLs.

like this:
http://cgi.ebay.in/NEW-4-3-GPS-CAR-NAVIGATOR-HOLUX-NAV-55A-WITH-WARRANTY_W0QQitemZ380093271536QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_203?hash=item380093271536&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A1|65%3A1|39%3A1|240%3A1318

Phew! That was long. You might already know a few sites like www.tinyurl.com that shorten/make tiny your long URLs. But here is a comparison of five of them that I found from this link.

Here is a comparison. I've put my Google Reader Shared Items as a test link.

Test link: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/15393105146633867508

Resulting Short links: (no. of characters excluding the 'http://')

http://tinyurl.com/8uu4rd (17)

http://is.gd/eloE (10)

http://bit.ly/jGb (10)

http://snipurl.com/9c2v5 (17)

http://cli.gs/GYgrnj (13)

looks like is.gd and bit.ly tie for the first position. Get more info by visiting the sites and reading the article linked.