Heres a video overview of how to see whats behind a TinyURL without really clicking on the link.

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

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a registered user I can develop custom, shortened URLs that people can in fact spell. I use these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation due to the fact that the default URLs provided by those services are always long and incoherent..

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

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, however including a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the original link without clicking it.

Bitly is a handy URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is an easy method to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. The trick is to merely include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.

Applications for Education.
Building great digital citizenship and cyber safety abilities is something that everyone ought to be helping our students do. Revealing them little suggestions like this one to prevent clicking on suspicious links is one of the ways that we can help our students construct their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Not all Bitly users are using them for excellent reasons. Some people use them to conceal dubious links. Fortunately, there is an easy method to rapidly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking the link. The technique is to simply include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the reduced URL is hosted and will reveal you what the original link was..
You can attempt this trick with a URL that I recently reduced. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight to a copy of the slides that I used 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..
View this brief video to see how you can utilize the “+” trick to learn whats concealed behind a Bitly link..