Do Url shorteners such as bit.ly serve any purpose in web development?

Question

I might be missing something here but am unable to understand the true purpose of link shortener services like bit.ly or is it just a lot of hype!

Truly if you type nyti.ms on your URL bar on the browser it takes you to www.nytimes.com, but still what is so hard in typing "nytimes.com! which is far much comprehensible to read and understand leave alone to remember!

Does shortening URL serve any purpose in web development?

Why should someone want use obscure shortened URL?

Answer 1

Think of e.g. Twitter. You have only 140 characters to give. If you want to add a URL to your message, it better be short – especially if you are not linking to the home page of another website, but somewhere deep.

Answer 2

Compression.

For example: you may want to fit a very long URL in a QR Code. :)

Which has limited capacity.

Answer 3

1. For twitter it is handy because of the 140 char limit
2. It is a tool to track how many times your shorted link is clicked.
3. Is this a programming question?

Answer 4

Mostly for services like Twitter where string length is limited. Also for various memes which require one not to see the link URL (say rick-rolling).

Answer 5

In phone communication such as texting or in online communications such as email,forums,newsgroups it may be desirable to shorten an extremely long URL.

If I email a very long link it may get line wrapped and break the URL. Other strangenesses of the URL may not be handled properly depending on the means that it is being communicated. If it is being read out loud over the phone it makes the URL much shorter.

Answer 6

Yes. It's a lot easier to trick people into clicking on links to really nasty porn sites if you disguise the URL using a URL shortener.