Articles
Be very picky about your url shortener! Some are bad for your business
by Paula van Dun Retired Today I stumbled on an url shortener service that sounds good but is actually a very bad thing!The message was that you could earn money by using their url shortener service for free.
I decided to check this service out; I am talking about adf.ly
Click on this link to Google and see what happens!
You are not on Google but on some other site that is shown first before your site or business opportunity!
Many people will think the wrong site was linked and will close the site immediately. Or they try another link on your site shortened with this service.
They will be irritated an annoyed and may never visit your site again.
Basically your are promoting everybody else but YOU. You are loosing possible prospects for a few dollars.
Maybe there are more url shorteners that work this way, i don't know. So if you want to use an url shortener try it out for yourself first with some links to see what happens.
There are also services that show an ad at the top or the bottom. Here are issues to. FE. viralurl does not show in all browsers. And they may distract the visitor from your own opportunity. However you also get visitors for free. personally I use them in tweets mostly. Not in Traffic Exchanges.
Below my stats. I use these links in Twitter Tweets a lot.
Read this related article on how and where to use these type of cloakers can be used best.
You have 60465 ad credits on hand which will displayyour personal ads over the network 6046 times.So far today, you earned 1080 additional ad credits
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About Paula van Dun 
Retired
5,279 connections, 88 recommendations, 13,330 honor points.Joined APSense since, October 3rd, 2010, From Kuşadası, Turkey.
Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.
Comments
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David Vasconcelos
 marketingEXCELLENT ARTICLE OF OPINION ... IN FACT, THE SERVICE REFERRED IN, NOTHING CONTRIBUTES TO GOOD OPERATION OF OUR BUSINESS ... Nov 5th 2010 10:07 |
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Meghan
 I always use link shorteners, because it allows me to create a longer message on Twitter. Beyond that, i don't use them. I don't use any that take you to another page first. It's confusing. I also read an article once that link shorteners can hurt your seo by cutting out a source for keywords, but I haven't seen anything else on that. Nov 5th 2010 10:13 |
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Gilberto Cintron
Viral, Local, Social & Mobile Marketing ExpertI only use a url shortner via twitter or Apsense.ME which is forced. My reasons are because url shortners steal your pagerank. Look at the shortned url, for example I use my own url to promote all products http://gilbertocintron.com/recommends/WHATEVER-PRODUCT.html, it may be long but does it really matter? My own website gets the credit as opposed to using any shortner, like bit.ly or tiny url. Not only do they make the url short but they camouflage it as well. Just my two cents. Nov 5th 2010 10:16 |
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Chuck Bartok
 Veteran Entrepreneur now SharingI agree with everyone.... Never could see the advantage of shortners, except in Micro-blogging and my favorite is Stumbleupon's http://su.pr You not only get a clean short link..it is exposed to Stumbleupon's website and we know that is good... Nov 5th 2010 10:23 |
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Paula van Dun
RetiredI am considering creating redirect subdomains for my main opportunities as Andy suggested. But I do not understand how this can be of benefit for redirect affiliate urls since the content is still external? Nov 5th 2010 10:24 |
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Gilberto Cintron
Viral, Local, Social & Mobile Marketing ExpertWhy redirect urls? I guess some of the pros have there own formula. Me, I like using my own name - it to promote any thing. Technically I only need one domain which is my name, so that when I promote it is like a personal recommendation http://gilbertocintron.com/recommends/fb-engine.htm Nov 5th 2010 10:29 |
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Slawomir Sobotowski
Web Designer, AdminI register and delete account that same day...after review site inside. I'm still proud member "scrnch.me". Read my blog for more info. Thanks. Nov 5th 2010 10:31 |
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Karen L.
Personal DevelopmentThese types of URL shorteners really steal your traffic, and prospects. I get annoyed when I click these links and they redirect me someplace other than the website I wanted to visit. The best shorteners are the ones that cloak your link without showing an ad, or break frames while surfing. Nov 5th 2010 15:19 |
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Andre Kalis
 I agree URL shorteners are only required and recommended for micro blogging purposes. You shouldn't use them otherwise especially not for sending people to your own sites, because you're giving away your link juice to another site. One does however need link cloaking for affiliate links. The best way to do this is by redirecting URLs at your own site using the .htaccess editor Dec 5th 2010 08:06 |
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Gilberto Cintron
Viral, Local, Social & Mobile Marketing Expert@Andre Kalis there is a new shortner here on apsense that does work, and is good. Check it out. Wincer has heard us and took action. Dec 5th 2010 11:58 |
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Bj aka Bill Brown
 Hosting and Backup Service providerthe only reason I would use the APSense shortener is to give a link to a download and make it expire after a few hours to stop product theft. I do use ad trackers but that is not to shorten the link it is to build my stats to see what works and what does not. Dec 5th 2010 19:12 |
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Paula van Dun
RetiredWell I trust the new shortener from APSense more than any other. They have some stats too. I use the links in some TE's and am currently changing some Dutch sites hoping to get APSense more known in The Netherlands Dec 6th 2010 01:43 |
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Andre Kalis
@Gilberto Cintron Thanks, I noticed the additional tool and will surely utilize it Dec 8th 2010 12:04 |
Paula you actually posted one of the main reasons that I don't use url shorteners or go to any site that does outside of Twitter. You don't know where that link goes most of the time.
While I understand people wanting to protect their affiliate link, hackers were using this trick before the affiliate marketers ever heard of it to redirect links to malicious sites. Unless I can hover my cursor over that link and see where it goes, and feel comfortably sure that it is not going to a malicious site, I'm not clicking it.
Nov 5th 2010 10:05