The Benefits of Link Shorteners

The Benefits of Link Shorteners

Making your links more stylish and readable makes people more comfortable in clicking on them.

A long cryptic URL is not inviting. It doesn’t confer any information about where it leads. https://bit.ly/BraddockAlbum says that the subject is “Braddock” and it’s an “Album”. The person looking at the link may not know if Braddock is a person, place or thing but the context of the link or the search can narrow the interpretation.  

Likewise the word “Album” could be music or photos. Context will again give clues to its nature.

When you create a short URL with Bitly  it points to 1 location forever. The second part is yours the /BraddockAlbum part is a unique identifier. For example on the ClickaSnap photo sharing platform file names and album names are not exclusive to until user. Actually, a subscriber can use the exact same title on any number of photos. That is not a wise idea but it works.

Within CAS many subscribers may create an Album using the same exact name. Their account name must be unique and that is how the server distinguishes one Album/Photo from all the others. The “/profile/{user}/photo/…” makes the URL unique.

Linking a photo to the outside world using Bitly gives a functionality which CAS has been promising since January 2023. That is, Google Analytics type tracking of non-subscriber access. Bitly links report the time, day, and source of clicks.  

In one instance I created and posted “…/ApartmentAlbum” to Facebook groups and TwitterX. In six days there were 221 clicks on that link. The report graph tells me when the clicks took place. None of the subsequent photo views were notified by CAS because they were not subscribers. Now I can know which social media connections yield results.

I realize all this effort for a few Cents is a minuscule return but the larger result is greater exposure and recognition on the Internet. Being well known on CAS is like having you family know you. Being known on social media is like your high school class all knowing you. Breaking out into the Google sphere means maybe millions of people knowing you and seeing your work.

Here are a few of my Shortened Links to Photograph Albums.


https://bit.ly/AlleyStory
https://bit.ly/Bokeh-Album
https://bit.ly/MailPouch
https://bit.ly/BankBuildings
https://bit.ly/Streetcoins
https://bit.ly/ApartmentAlbum
https://bit.ly/PittsburghAlbum
https://bit.ly/DoorsAlbum
https://bit.ly/ChurchesAlbum
https://bit.ly/RailroadBluesAlbum
https://bit.ly/HighwayScenes
https://bit.ly/FrontPorchCollection

 

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