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

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 attempt the exact same link however 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.

Bitly is a convenient tool for creating short URLs to share in place of long URLs. Some people use Bitly to attempt to mask URLs to attempt to get you to click on nefarious links.
The trick is to merely include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the initial URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the reduced URL is hosted and will show you what the initial link was..