Bit.ly Trumps Budurl To Become Best Twitter Link Track, Stat & Shrink Tool

URL Shrinker

URL shrinking tools have become very popular over the few years with long links like EBAY auction links and the character limit in Plurk and Twitter.

The most popular and most classic URL shrinking tool is Tinyurl which even Twitter has adapted as the main URL shortening tool. Tiny URL is the original URL shrinker and is the one that is most understood with the name. Everyone knows what Tinyurl means when looking at the service where other services like is.gd or snipurl may not be user friendly to some.

Birth of Budurl

I have been using Tinyurl like most others have and I noticed there was something missing. I wanted a way to see who was clicking on my links that I provide on Twitter to measure my results.

Within my Real Estate community I was introduced to Budurl where a lot of my fellow Real Estate professionals been throwing up Budurl links instead of Tinyurl links. This sparked my interest in checking out the site because of so many Tweets I been noticing the switch.

Budurl turned out to be great tool in providing Link Stats and a URL shrinker. You can even create an account to keep track of your URL shrinks to see how many people have clicked on your link. If you don’t want to create an account you can just put a “/s” at the end of your Budurl link to see the stats within your web browser.

So Budurl was only 22 characters while Tinyurl was 25 characters. Budurl provided link stats while Tinyurl didn’t.

Budurl won my vote.

Bit.Ly knocks out Budurl

Recently there has been many new URL shrink sites out there that really do the same thing but with just different names. I have experienced quite a few of these and still became loyal to Budurl.

2 Sites have caught my interest though recently, Is.Gd and Bit.ly URL shrink service sites. Now these 2 sites have caught my interest to the simple fact that the Twitter client Tweetdeck has the shorten URL services within the client.

Is.Gd is by far the shortes URL service out there with only an astounding 17 characters total. The only down side is this service still doesn’t provide good link stats and track like Budurl. So I would only use Is.Gd if I need to utilize a very long Tweet, taking advantage of the extra 5+ characters I can save.

Character Limit

Bit.Ly is only 20 characters but does a whole lot more than Budurl. I have been a Budurl fan for a long time and I didn’t think any URL shorten service will beat Budurl until I seen the features on Bit.Ly.

Traffic Sources

Bit.ly has a link tracker too like Budurl but always takes it a step further. Bit.Ly displays all the referring sites and E-mail/Software stats. So whether a user reads the shorten url via chat client, e-mail or Twitter, Bit.ly will show you how many clicks.

Conversations

The biggest reason why I switched to Bit.Ly is due to the c0nversation tracking in this URL shrink service. You can actually keep track of your Retweets in Twitter and reposts in Friendfeed. Not only can you keep track of sites displaying your shorten url but you can also view the comments left on the link as-well.

Convenience

Lastly on why I made the switch to Bit.Ly is because of this last feature which makes Bit.Ly more attractive to use especially at work when you can’t download Twitter clients like Tweetdeck, the feature is the last 15 recent shrinks.

Bit.Ly will display your last 15 URL shrinks without forcing you to create an account or log in an account. This is perfect for on the fly and is so convenient to see all your stats on one page. Budurl can display all your Budurl links to display clicks but you have to log in and create an account.

Yes I have made the switch to Bit.Ly now and I have nothing against Budurl they were a good service to use but for right now Bit.Ly has won me over. What are your thoughts?

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7 Users Responded In This Article

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JustinSMV (JustinSMV)

Said in January 3rd, 2009 @9:54 am

new post -> Why the switch from Budurl to Bit.ly URL service for Twitter http://bit.ly/qBuI

Nick Gonzalez

Said in January 9th, 2009 @4:10 am

I think with the twitter craze, we’re loosing sight of great traffic sources like StumbleUpon and Digg. They may have been hot a while ago, but it’s still much easier to build more traffic from those sites.

Nick Gonzalez’s last blog post..Cow Gives Birth To A Man, And I’m Supposed To Want Raybans?

Danielson

Said in February 22nd, 2009 @6:51 am

I think ClickMeter.com will become the new standard.
They announced the release of their beta version just one month ago (January 2008).
CM Trim you links as a lot of other services, CM also Track you links as just few others, but also let you choose which domain you can use!!!

For example http://www.go.9nl.com/cm that is only 14 chars long including “/”.
And I bet they will add much more domains in the choice.

They also say they tested the system to be the strongest in the market: up to 30.000.000 clicks for every account in PRO version!

Dany

malcolm coles

Said in March 27th, 2009 @4:28 pm

I reckon tr.im is best in my review: http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/url-shorteners-review/

malcolm coles’s last blog post..URL shorteners reviewed

Said in March 27th, 2009 @4:29 pm

PS @Danielson – isn’t your example 24 characters??

Robin @ Heart of Wisdom

Said in July 29th, 2009 @10:56 am

Thanks you just saved me $12 a month. I have enjoyed Budurl for several months. Now I tried st tried Bit.Ly and it works great-FREE.

However, I don’t see my description – so if I want to go back and copy the description for the Tweet I can only get the Bit.Lye URL. Description no longer available (unless I save my Tweets) Unless I’m missing something.

Thanks a lot!