If you wish to try this with a TinyURL, tinyurl.com/emkns9a8 will lead you to the page for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp, but adding a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the initial link without clicking on it.

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive utilized for many years. There is a simple way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The technique is to simply add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was.

Heres a video summary of how to see whats behind a TinyURL without actually clicking the link.

Applications for Education.
Structure great digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everybody ought to be helping our trainees do. Revealing them little suggestions like this one to avoid clicking suspicious links is one of the methods that we can assist our students build their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.

As I do every year, Im taking this week as a break from releasing new article and will be republishing a few of the most popular posts of the year. Heres one from April.

Sadly, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for good reasons. Some individuals utilize them to conceal dubious links. There is a simple method to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. The trick is to just add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the initial URL was. That will then reveal you the Bitly page on which the reduced URL is hosted and will show you what the initial link was..
You can try this trick with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I utilized in my recent Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my original presentation URL and see when I created the reduced URL..
Enjoy this brief video to see how you can use the “+” technique to discover whats hidden behind a Bitly link..

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a signed up user I can create custom, shortened URLs that people can really spell. I utilize these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation due to the fact that the default URLs offered by those services are incoherent and constantly long..

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has been used without permission if you see it somewhere else.