This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has actually been used without permission if you see it somewhere else. Sites that routinely take my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Regrettably, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for good factors. Some people use them to conceal wicked links. Thankfully, there is an easy way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking the link. The trick is to just add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add 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 shortened URL is hosted and will show you what the initial link was..
You can attempt this technique with a URL that I just recently reduced. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I used in my recent Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my initial presentation URL and see when I produced the reduced URL..
Watch this brief video to see how you can utilize the “+” trick to find out whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

Applications for Education.
Structure good digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everybody need to be assisting our students do. Revealing them little tips like this one to prevent clicking suspicious links is among the methods that we can assist our trainees develop their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.

Bitly is a handy URL shortener that Ive used for many years. There is a simple method to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was.

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive utilized for lots of years. As a signed up user I can create customized, reduced URLs that people can in fact spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation because the default URLs supplied by those services are constantly long and incoherent..