Link Shortening Service Alternatives To Bit.ly
Trying to post on Craigslist is getting more and more difficult. As of November 25th, 2009, 2 of the most popular link shortening services, Bit.ly and tinyurl.com are now blacklisted. So I went out to find some new ones to see if I could find one that still works. . . and I did.
Backstory:
URL shortening services were initially popular because web addresses started to get long and links would break when sent in an email. However, as microblogging services like Twitter have become popular, an increasing number of services and applications, including tracking & metrics, have been added to the basic URL shortening features.
| Service | Customizable URL | Tracking | 301 Redirect | Unique Features |
 tinyurl.com |
Yes | No | Yes | Toolbar button |
 cli.gs |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Stats are private, real time and very detailed, geotarget URLs based on country of visitor, bookmarklet. |
 zi.ma |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Bulk URL shortening, registration not required for stats, download stats to CSV, bookmarklet, “popular” links page |
 bit.ly |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Saves copy of page linked to, tracks “conversations”, Twitter search fo uses of shortened URL, bookmarklet, import to Google spreadsheets |
 twurl.nl (aka tweetburner) |
No | Yes | No | Most popular items linked in last hour, bookmarklet, built in to Twhirl |
 is.gd |
No | No | Yes | Really bleeping short URLs, bookmarklet, Firefox plugin, built in to Twhirl |
 snipurl.com (aka Snurl Snipr Sn.im) |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Popular snips, snip search, RSS feed for snips, export to Excel, claim snips before you registered, edit snips |
 poprl.com |
No | Yes | No | Most POPular links, top domains, public stats, search, must register with Twitter account – boo |
 ad.vu (aka adjix) |
No* | Yes | No | Optional ads that share revenue, scheduled Tweeting, *use your own domain name as the link URLs, bookmarklet, option to use ad.vu |
 tr.im |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Uses Twitter or identi.ca info for login, bookmarklet |
 budurl.com |
Yes | Yes* | No** | Detailed, real time stats (*if you upgrade) this is the only service with fees but there is a free version, **uses 307 redirect |
Thanks to TopRankBlog.com for this table of the best URL Link Shortening Services!