Best of 2021 – See What’s Behind Bitly and TinyURL Without Clicking

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

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is a simple way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without actually 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 redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.

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

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive used for many years. As a registered user I can develop custom-made, shortened URLs that individuals can actually spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion because the default URLs offered by those services are always long and incoherent..

Applications for Education.
Structure great digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everyone ought to be helping our students do. Showing them little ideas like this one to avoid clicking on suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can assist our trainees build their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.

There is a simple method to quickly 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 add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.
You can try this technique with a URL that I just recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly 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 original presentation URL and see when I developed the shortened URL..
View this brief video to see how you can utilize the “+” technique to discover whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has actually been used 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, 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.

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