Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive utilized for many years. There is an easy way to rapidly identify 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.

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

Applications for Education.
Building excellent digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that all of us must be assisting our trainees do. Showing them little pointers like this one to avoid clicking suspicious links is among the manner ins which we can help our students develop their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

There is an easy method to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking 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 initial URL was.
You can attempt this trick with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I utilized my recent 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 developed the reduced URL..
Watch this short video to see how you can use the “+” technique to discover whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive used for several years. As a registered user I can develop customized, shortened URLs that individuals can actually 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 provided by those services are constantly long and incoherent..