Ive developed a number of short 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 convenient tool for developing brief URLs to share in location of long URLs. Ive used it for years to create tailored URLs that are easy for my students to type. Some people use Bitly to try to mask URLs to try to get you to click on 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 technique 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 original URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the shortened URL is hosted and will show 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 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 shortened my original URL.