Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is an easy way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.

Applications for Education.
Building good digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everyone ought to be helping our students do. Showing them little tips like this one to prevent clicking suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can help our trainees build their digital citizenship and cyber safety abilities.

Not all Bitly users are using them for good reasons. Some people utilize them to conceal wicked links. There is an easy way to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. The technique is to simply include 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 reduced URL is hosted and will reveal you what the initial link was..
You can attempt this trick with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight 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 presentation URL and see when I produced the shortened URL..
Watch this short video to see how you can use the “+” trick to find out whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a signed up user I can create custom-made, reduced URLs that individuals can in fact spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation due to the fact that the default URLs offered by those services are incoherent and constantly long..

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it in other places, it has been utilized without approval. Sites that routinely take my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.