Link/URL shortening services - becoming ever more popular but is there $$$ in it?
 

Just curious as to what people here thought about this. Seems like TinyURL is now 1 amongst dozens of link/URL shortening services and even besides Twitter I'm seeing more and more usage of them. A while back I had bought a name kind of as a purpose of collecting it and maybe using it vs. reselling that is f'in golden for link shortening in the truest sense of the function, but I just don't see how those sites make money.

My only thought is to reserve the shortest URLs and/or dictionary words/popular phrases and charge money for them (like what new domain extensions are doing on domains now), plus I've seen sites that do premium service that includes robust stats on visitors to the link and whatnot. I have no idea if many people are paying for that or not. My own experience has been go on the site, make the link, leave. *shrug*

Oops, I forgot the magic phrase to get responses: OMFTG TUBE SITEZES O NOSES WEUR TEH GAWNERZ!!!111ONEONEWON. That should do it. :)

link shortening services. fantastic setup for scammers and spammers who can't afford a domain of their own, or are simply to retarded to setup a redirect on their $2.99 .info. should be a never ending demand for such services..

First, keep in mind that they cost very little money to run. Second, remember 404 traffic and PR.

we have one coming to urlf.com soon to make it 50 services

you set it up and then redirect all the traffic to your sponsor a year from now, most of the short-url-midgets did that

With the particular domain I have being arguably one of the best for it, I'd be intent on making it the best such service out there and somehow make a business out of it, so no in-n-out except maybe selling the site intact.

Good luck with it - better URL than most of them doing it.

Yea, kinda sad...people are quicker to click tinyurl.com/qxzjwykq vs. qxzjwykq.info even though the first could very well be going to the 2nd for all they know.

Not sure but like you said there are loads!

TinyURL for example seems to just pack it's site with google ads and has a donate button.

Not sure how else you could monetize it

I bought a URL shortening script a few months back for my own use. I mainly use it to shorten up my CJ affiliate links, most are 176 characters long. I turned off the public use of it, never thought about letting others use it.

I have one, for future PR value. I don't scam peoples links, in the future I'll enable crawling to validate the page for it still being there and it not redirecting etc. and will 301 those dead links back to the main page... other than that I have no plans to do the "in between" page others seem to have.

several ways to make money , some of the big ones have taken advantage of the fact scammers will use them.

That's why I stopped running one, I got fed up of all the abuse reports.

By doing what, advertising Western Union and selling "I love Nigeria!" T-shirts? No comprendo.

dont know how tinyurl is making money other than on the landing page, since none of the urls go through ads

All of them are waiting for Google to buy them! :)

Hugs,
Danielle

where there is traffic, there is $$$.... there are ways to monetize the traffic just have to think outside the box... and not just monetize, but even make ton of $$ from it... :2 cents:

they could always 404 some of their most popular links :p

What script is it? Is it good?

I just thought it was funny that just a few days I think after I posted this, Bit.ly got $2 million in funding. And most people's reaction commenting on blog posts everywhere was pretty much the same: "wtf?" lol

The domain I got is basically tied for not only the shortest in letter length, but the shortest in physical length even, and the letter combo it is is actually very easy to brand for this even. It's one of those things where even though I'm in domains and have enough shit on my plate as it is, it's hard not to look seriously at doing something with it - not half-assed but balls deep. :)

I think tinyurl is a good domain as it says what it does. Im not sure if it would work with something very short for example ab.us as people are not that lazy and l also think trust plays a part too.

tinyurl is a very unique ideal name

Guessing it takes a lot of work and $$$$ for surfers to pick up on a new url shorting service.

I have the software and think 1000,s do and short domains but its a market thats not as easy as it looks to succeed in on a big scale.

Just my :2 cents:

Give it a go if it's doable for you. What do you have to lose on it? Not like it's gonna be a big bandwidth hog...

Haha, too funny I was just working on setting one up.

the most spammed ... some ass spammed one of my forum daily, and he contacted me "you can make money, i am making 30-60 dollars every month" ... thousands of forums spammed, thousands of thousands of people getting spammed, for few bucks ... i think there is no money in it :)

agreed :2 cents:

plenty of these popping up everywhere nowadays