Ive created a number of brief video presentations 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.

Bitly is a hassle-free tool for creating brief URLs to share in location of long URLs. Ive used it for several years to create personalized URLs that are easy for my students to type. Some individuals use Bitly to attempt to mask URLs to attempt to get you to click on dubious links. Thankfully, there is an easy way to see where a Bitly link will take you without having to in fact click on the link..
The technique is to merely add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the original 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..

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 attempt the very same link but include “+” to the end of it so it reads like this.
bit.ly/ 2ZZnuP2+ you will go to the Bitly page where I reduced my initial URL.