Bitly is a practical tool for developing short URLs to share in location of long URLs. Ive used it for several years to create tailored URLs that are simple for my students to type. Some people use Bitly to try to mask URLs to attempt to get you to click on dubious links. There is a simple way to see where a Bitly link will take you without having to really 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 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 reveal you what the original link was..

You can attempt 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 however add “+” to the end of it so it reads like this.
bit.ly/ 2ZZnuP2+ you will go to the Bitly page where I reduced my original URL.

Ive developed a number 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.