Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive utilized for numerous years. There is an easy way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. The trick is to merely add 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.

Regrettably, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for great reasons. Some people utilize them to hide wicked links. There is an easy method to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The trick is to merely add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was. That will then reveal you the Bitly page on which the shortened URL is hosted and will show you what the original link was..
You can try this technique with a URL that I recently reduced. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight to a copy of the slides that I utilized in my current Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my initial presentation URL and see when I developed the shortened URL..
Watch this brief video to see how you can use the “+” trick to discover out whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

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

Applications for Education.
Building excellent digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that all of us must be assisting our students do. Revealing them little tips like this one to avoid clicking suspicious links is among the ways that we can assist our students build their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it somewhere else, it has actually been utilized without authorization.

Heres a video summary 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 article and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Heres one from April.

If you want to attempt this with a TinyURL, tinyurl.com/emkns9a8 will lead you to the page for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp, however 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.