Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive utilized for lots of years. There is a simple way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the initial URL was.

Applications for Education.
Structure excellent digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that everyone must be helping our trainees do. Revealing them little tips like this one to prevent clicking on suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can help our trainees develop their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.

There is an easy way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The technique is to just add 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 technique with a URL that I just recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I utilized 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 initial presentation URL and see when I created the shortened URL..
Enjoy this brief video to see how you can utilize the “+” technique to discover whats hidden behind a Bitly link..

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

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive utilized for many years. As a registered user I can create customized, shortened URLs that people can in fact spell. I use these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion since the default URLs offered by those services are incoherent and constantly long..