Bitly links can be a very useful tool when advertising online, especially if you’re looking to disguise a link.
Most importantly for digital advertisers though, when used correctly a bitly link can act as a third-party verifier, in that they can help verify how many clicks an ad has received.
You can then cross-reference this click data against both your DSP and Google Analytics (or other analytics software) to better understand how your advertising campaign is performing.
But for now, let’s start at the beginning.
Quick Links
What is a Bitly Link?
Put simply, a ‘bitly’ (or bitly link) is a URL shortening tool that allows you to shorten a long URL into a much smaller one.
In doing so, it redirects the user from the shortened bitly URL to the original landing page. Because of this, bitly can also be considered a redirection tool. More on that later.
Example of a Bitly Link
To see how large of an impact a bitly can have, take the following URL as an example:
https://www.examplewebsite.co.uk/?utm_source=Mobile&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=example=campaign&utm_campaign=Example+Campaign+Name
This URL is quite long and doesn’t look very presentable. But after using Bitly to shorten it, it becomes:
https://bit.ly/3IdwYrj
This is a lot more presentable!
Why do You Need Bitly Links?
As mentioned in the above section, bitly links can come in useful when you need your link to look presentable, but you still want to be able to track how many times it has been clicked.
So, one reason you might need a bitly link is to improve presentability, such as when embedded in official documents or business reports.
Another reason you might need a bitly link is to conceal a UTM. I won’t go into UTM’s in this article, but I have already written an article exclusively on UTMs and what they are, which can be found here.
You might also want to use a bitly when you have a character limit, like in a tweet.
Twitter only allows 280 characters per tweet, and it was even less before they increased it in 2017 – before this it used to be 140 characters!
If you’re wanting to link people to an external website via your tweets, you don’t want most of those characters used up by the link itself.
Take the example link we used at the start of this article. Using bitly, we shortened the URL from 134 characters to just 23!
How Does a Bitly Link Work?
Bitly works based on something called a 301 redirect.
A 301 redirect is a status code sent by a web server to your web browser, and it tells your browser that the webpage you’re trying to go to has been permanently redirected to another URL.
Think of it like redirecting your post after you move house. It’s essentially the same thing but just digitally!
The below graphic shows in the simplest terms how this redirect works.
- The user clicks on (or types out) the shortened bitly link into their web browser.
- The web browser navigates to the bitly link URL, which is stored on Bitly (the company)’s web server.
- That web server redirects the user to the original landing page (using a 301 redirect).
Frequently Asked Questions
Do bitly links expire?
No, bitly links do not expire.
A bitly link will last forever, unless you decide to delete it. If you do, the redirect will no longer work, so if a user clicks on that bitly link, they will be redirected to a “404: Error not found” page.
Are bitly links safe?
Yes, bitly links are safe.
A bitly link is a URL redirection tool, that also allows you to shorten the displayed URL in the process.
So, there is no safety issues inherent in the redirection process.
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