Bitly is a convenient tool for creating brief URLs to share in place of long URLs. Ive utilized it for many years to produce tailored URLs that are simple for my students to type. Sadly, some individuals use Bitly to attempt to mask URLs to try to get you to click nefarious links. Fortunately, there is an easy method to see where a Bitly link will take you without needing to in fact click on the link..
The trick is to just include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will redirect 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 reveal you what the initial link was..

You can try this with my Bitly link of.
bit.ly/ 2ZZnuP2 which will take you to the registration page for my Practical Ed Tech Newsletter (.
https://practicaledtech.com/weekly-newsletter/). If you try the very same link but include “+” to the end of it so it checks out like this.
bit.ly/ 2ZZnuP2+ you will go to the Bitly page where I shortened my original URL.

Ive produced a couple of brief video demonstrations of how this trick works. This is the Instagram video that I made about it. This is the YouTube video that I made about it.