How to See What’s Hidden Behind a TinyURL

The trick is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A few individuals emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL reducing services. If you see it in other places, it has been used without approval.

Applications for EducationAs I composed last week, developing good digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that all of us ought to be helping our trainees do. Revealing them little tips like this one to avoid clicking on suspicious links is among the methods that we can help our trainees develop their digital citizenship and cyber safety skills.

The technique is to include a “+” to the end of any TinyURL address in order to land on a safe TinyURL page that exposes what the original link was that got shortened. You can then decide if you want to click through to the location or not.
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 adding a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the original link without clicking on it.

Ive tried the “+” trick with a lot of other URL shortening tools and TinyURL is the only one besides Bitly that Ive found it to deal with..
Whats the technique?

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it somewhere else, it has actually been used without consent. Sites that frequently take my (Richard Byrnes) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Last week I composed
The technique is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A few individuals emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL shortening services.
TinyURLs..

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

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