Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is a simple way to rapidly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. When you add the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.

There is an easy way to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. The technique is to just include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was.
You can try this trick with a URL that I just recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I used in my current Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my original discussion URL and see when I created the reduced URL..
View this short video to see how you can utilize the “+” trick to learn whats hidden behind a Bitly link..

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it somewhere else, it has been used without approval. Sites that regularly steal my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Applications for Education.
Structure great digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that all of us must be helping our trainees do. Revealing them little tips like this one to avoid clicking on suspicious links is one of the methods that we can help our students develop their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a registered user I can develop custom, reduced URLs that individuals can actually spell. I use these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation because the default URLs supplied by those services are incoherent and always long..