The web is built around addresses to web pages, often called URLs. Sometimes, some of these URL addresses can be quite long. Consider the address to a Google map which shows where my house in Oregon is:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2041+NE+Josephine+Dr,+Hillsboro,+OR+97124&sll=37.09024,-112.412109&sspn=54.79724,118.476563&ie=UTF8&ll=45.540902,-122.985364&spn=0.000749,0.001808&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=45.540753,-122.985334&panoid=XYkzvAe2UII2YNtD0tOp5A&cbp=1,281.96901520324406,,0,5.839042847276948

Not only does that take up several lines, but putting that in an email, instant message, or facebook status could be kind of a problem.

That is why there are several services which can store a long address like the one above, and shrink it down to a small address that is much easier to use. These services store the long address, and give you a short address. When someone accesses the short address, it automatically forwards that someone to the web page at the full long address.

Four of the more popular services that do this are: bit.ly, TinyURL.com, is.gd, and tr.im.

All these services do basically the same thing, but their interface and length of the small URL they give you might be different. As an example, I took the long Google maps URL above and made it smaller using each of the services:

In the future, if you see an address like on of the above, realize that it is a shortened URL to somewhere else. If you ever find yourself needing to shrink a URL, go ahead and give one of these free services a try.

For those who want to run their own URL-shrinking web service, look at lil’url, free open source software that you can install on your own web server.