Unfortunately, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for great reasons. Some people utilize them to hide nefarious links. There is a simple way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The trick is to simply add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the shortened 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 straight 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 developed the shortened URL..
View this short video to see how you can use the “+” trick to discover whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

Applications for Education.
Structure excellent digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everybody must be assisting our trainees do. Showing them little ideas like this one to prevent clicking on suspicious links is among the manner ins which we can assist our trainees construct their digital citizenship and cyber safety abilities.

As I do every year, Im taking today as a break from publishing brand-new article and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Heres one from April.

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has been used without consent if you see it in other places.

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a registered user I can create custom-made, reduced URLs that people can actually spell. I use these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion due to the fact that the default URLs supplied by those services are incoherent and constantly long..

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is a simple way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without really 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 instead of to whatever the initial URL was.

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

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