Link shorteners might sound like one of the simplest tools on the market – pasting in a long website URL, into a shortener and being returned a neat little short one back. But behind that simplicity, there’s a lot of clever magic happening, along with quirky uses, and marketing magic that most people don’t know about. So we’ve written out favourite 20 fun facts about link shorteners, that prove they’re more interesting than they look.
The first link shortener, TinyURL, launched back in 2002. It was designed to help people share long, messy links on forums where characters were limited.
Link shorteners really took off when Twitter came along with its 140-character limit. Without them, tweeting articles and links would have been almost impossible.
Modern shorteners like LinkShortener.io aren’t just about saving space — they handle branding, analytics, redirects, and QR code generation.
Studies show branded links get more clicks than generic ones. That’s because they look safer and more professional.
We have seen but I also hear a lot from marketeers on positive impact of using a branded short link in different channels. Whether that be SMS marketing where people can see the link and wary, to an email campaign showing a url. The performance not only from a click point of view, is the post click engagement, that once someone clicks a short unbranded link they may look at the generic url link and be wary of any further actions. So not further clicks, engagement around the page or sales.
With LinkShortener.io, you can also shorten phone numbers and email addresses — useful for SMS campaigns or mailto links.
Every QR code is basically a visual version of a short link. They store the link data and make it scannable.
Shorteners can add UTM tags automatically, making it easier to track campaigns in Google Analytics.
With features like country-based or device-based redirects, the same short link can send different users to different destinations.
LinkShortener.io lets you organise short links with internal tags, making campaign management simpler.
By creating multiple short links pointing to variations of a page, marketers can quickly test what performs best. All engagement of clicks should be tested in many different ways, from time of page, pages visited to conversions.
Short links are easier to type from a poster, flyer, or billboard. Add a QR code, and it’s even quicker.
Link shorteners can power digital business cards, where one neat URL links to all your contact details and even a downloadable vCard.
Podcasters use short links to give listeners easy-to-remember URLs, instead of long messy ones.
Shorteners show not just clicks, but when and where those clicks happened. That’s powerful data for marketers to analyse whether the click was on desktop or mobile, what time of day and which country gets the most clicks.
SMS campaigns usually have character limits. Short links make sure more space goes to the actual message.
Many food delivery services use short links (and QR codes) to make re-ordering fast and trackable.
Reputable shorteners scan for malware and phishing, helping protect users.
You can set expiry dates on links — perfect for limited-time campaigns.
Link in bio pages are powered by short links, bringing all your channels into one place.
From simple URL tools to full marketing platforms, shorteners keep adding new features like bulk uploads, content-level unique short links to migration tools.
We here at LinkShortener.io, are always evolving on the new features that our customers are asking for, but also releasing to the public a lot quicker than other competitors. We have a strict testing process but with a shorter roadmap to development, we can produce new features much faster. From migration tools to contact-level unique short links, both we created from customers feedback and requests. Customer were asking for unique short links per contact, and ways to save money so could we migrate their branded short links. But the future of link shortening is exciting.
How do you see the future of link shortening?
Written by: Sarah Marsh-Collins
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