Have you ever emailed a link to someone and then wondered if they clicked on it? bit.ly is a free solution that not only allows you to track click-throughs but also helps shorten those very long Website addresses or URL’s (Uniform Resource Locator).
While the shortening of a Website address isn’t as valuable it is as important. Let’s look at an example.
The problem with sending long Website addresses is that they aren’t always displayed correctly. Some email programs only make part of the text ‘clickable’, this normally happens in plain text emails if the Website address covers two lines, for example:
In this sample email the portion of the link on the second line (circled in red) is not considered part of the entire Website address. Anyone clicking on this link will see a “Page not found” error message.
Bit.ly solves this issue by converting long Website URL’s into much shorter equivalents. To create the new version of a link simply go to the homepage of bit.ly and paste the long URL into the field on the home page:
Click the ‘Shorten’ button and you will then see a short version of the URL. You can then cut and paste the URL into any email. The following example is a real life (and long) URL/Website address from this blog:
The bit.ly version of the same link is:
Bit.ly also provides a mechanism for you to share shortened links directly from their Website but the best part of the service is the click-through history. It details not only the number of times a link has been clicked but also when, how the link was found (in an email for example) and some basic geographic data. Bookmarking this great (and free) utility is the easiest way to use this fantastic service. I hope this is useful! 
