December 22nd, 2009 | By: Garin Kilpatrick

The following 10 free resources are the best ways to shorten and customize links on the web. With the link shortening services below you will be able to make links really short, customize them, track their analytics, and share them easily. Not all link shortening services offer all of these features. Read the list below and let us know in the comments what your favorite link shortening service is!

1. bit.ly

bit.ly is the default url shortening service offered by Twitter. It is my favorite url shortening service since it offers built-in link tracking and analytics, a cool sidebar bookmarklet, a firefox extension, native Twitter posting support, and more!

Example: http://bit.ly/gar1n

2. j.mp

j.mp is owned by the same company, and by the same technology as bit.ly. The difference is the name. j.mp is 2 characters shorter than bit.ly for the Tweets that are cutting it close to the 140 limit.

Example: http://j.mp/vanhalen

3. 3.ly

3.ly offers the “worlds shortest” URLs. Since they are less well known than j.mp they offer more availability for custom domains. To view the hit count of a 3.ly link simply add a minus sign – to the end of your URL.

Example: http://3.ly/googleapps

4. Tinyurl.com

Tinyurl.com was the standard url shortening service before bit.ly was developed. They have already shortened over 400 million links. The downside to this is that many custom urls are already taken. TinyURL offers a browser bookmark button that will provide a TinyURL of the page you are on. TinyURL also offers a preview feature for your browser that will allow you to preview where a TinyURL will go, before you click on the link.

5. Su.pr

Su.pr is the only URL shortening service that also helps your content get more traffic! Every Su.pr URL you create exposes your content to StumbleUpon’s nearly 8 million users. You will need a StumbleUpon account to access the Twitter integration, traffic analytics, and custom URLs.

6. TinyURL.com

TinyURL is a URL Shortening Service that offers a browser bookmark button that will provide a TinyURL of the page you are on. TinyURL also offers a preview feature for your browser that will allow you to preview where a TinyURL will go, before you click on the link.

7. Is.gd

Is.gd is a good URL shortening service.

8. URLcut.com

A simple service that you can use to shorten long URLs and password-protect them.

Example: http://urlcut.com/1tvaf

9. Goo.gl

goo.gl is a URL shortening service offered by Google. To use the service you must download the Google Toolbar.

Example: http://goo.gl/l6MS

10. Youtu.be

YouTube links can be shortened by editing the URL. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDOXHEfxrw can be shortened to http://youtu.be/PEDOXHEfxrw. Both links direct to the same video.

Feedback

What is your favorite URL shortening service?