WheresItGo is a helpful service that allows you to extract the real URL of a shortened one, or even find out where other redirected URLs, such as the ones used by FeedProxy, go.

WheresItGo is the creation of trickeries!.

To learn about what is new from WheresItGo, simply follow the updates on Twitter @re5et.

I have previously posted a roundup of 20 Really Short URL Shorteners, but now I feel the need to list the shortest URL shorteners out there, or at least the ones I know about. Basically, the shortest domain name possible is one that is made up of 3 letters and a dot; the first character could be a letter, number, or a Unicode character followed by the dot and the 2 letters of ccTLD (country code top-level domain).

Finding such a short domain name is not easy, even though there are more than 250 ccTLDs to choose from, and many domain lookup services to help you achieve that such as domai.nr. For that reason, and to set them apart from the many similar services, I bring you this roundup of the shortest URL shorteners, hoping their existence will be contrary to their characters length.

Related Roundups

• 20 Really Short URL Shorteners
• 15 Domain Lookup Sites That Do It as You Type
• 10 Online Clipboards for Easy Text Sharing

Helpful Articles and Resources

• Country code top-level domain – From Wikipedia
• List of ccTLDs – From IANA
• VisiBone Country Chart an interesting map of internet country codes. (via Jacopo Farina)
• How To Easily Create Your Own URL Shortener With WordPress – by Rae Hoffman of Outspoken Media
• PHPurl a free and simple script in case you want to create your own URL shortening service – by Nile Flores of Blondish.net
• Shorten URL – a useful Firefox Add-on currently supporting 100 URL shortening services by LouCypher whom I thank for bringing to my attention a couple of the shortest URL shorteners I didn’t know about.

Know Some More?

You know the drill; share them with everyone by adding them in the comments.

3.ly is a new really, really, really short (3 letters) URL shortener that was suggested by Nancy Jentra in the comments of our article – 20 Really Short URL Shorteners. The service use is typical to any URL shortener, but what makes it different is of course it’s length, only 3 letters, similar to u.nu which was previously listed in our showcase.

Features:

• Create really short URLs – The service is 3 Letters only
• Add a custom identifier to your shortened URL
• Bookmarklet available to easily use the service right from your browser

More features will be added soon, such as user accounts to track your shortened URLs. So, if you want to learn more about the new features from 3.ly (Threely), you can follow the updates on Twitter @Threely.

Untiny.me is a service to get the original URL of a shortened one. This is useful in case you need to know where the link will take you, or if the URL shortening service is blocked by a certain proxy, a case many users face in certain countries.

Features:

• Extract shortened URLs
• Most URL shortening services are supported
• Add-ons for browsers and GreaseMonkey Script available
• API available
• Multilingual – English and Arabic

About:

Untiny.me is the creation of Saleh Al-Zaid, and you can follow the updates on Twitter @untiny.

That’s how Saleh describes his site:

The main reason of Untiny is that some of the tiny services are blocked in some countries although the original long URL is not blocked. Untiny retrieves the original URL so you can access it – if it is not blocked too. Untiny is NOT a proxy breaker!

u.nu "the shortest urls. period." That’s the site’s tagline, and I think it says it all.

Features:

• Create the shortest URLs – http://u.nu/4m4
• Tells you the number of characters shortened, and the percentage
• Stats easily accessed by adding a question mark "?" to the end of the shortened URL – http://u.nu/4m4?

Hat tip to @kelvinq.

kl.am is a search engine friendly URL shortener, created by Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Not only is kl.am incredibly short, it’s also the first URL shortener to support Campaign Variables. Campaign Variables allow you to tag links with campaign data that can be tracked by popular stats services, like Google Analytics.

kl.am offers bookmarklets that allow the use of the service right from your browser, without the need to visit the site, and has a full API which allows access to all of the features of kl.am, including referral and click-through statistics.

Whspr.me gives you a temporary URL for your email address, so you can get emails without revealing it. Here’s an example: Say you want to advertise a job opening on Twitter, and you don’t want to share your company email address. Some applicants may not want to post a public @reply, and they can’t send you a direct message if you don’t already follow them. Include a whspr! URL, and they can reach you discreetly.

QRJumps is a free online QR code generator. QR Codes, or Quick Response Codes, are two dimensional bar codes that allow your QR Code device enabled, such as your mobile phone, to take you directly to the URL.

QRJumps are like QR Codes except they have advanced features such as QR code redirection, being able to change the destination URL without changing the QR Code, password protection, and the ability to have your QR codes expire on a certain date.

You can share your QRJumps with the world. Print them out, or even embed them in your webpage. Although a sign up to the service is not required, having an account would allow you to change the QRJump destination at any time, provides you stats on each QRJump, and gives you the option to generate larger images.

Linkasa is a free internet service allowing the creation of shorter links, or URL shortener, making the exchange of URLs in Twitter, forums, mails, chats and other instant messengers easy and safe.

Features:

• Shorter links – Linkasa uses a base 62 compression algorithm.
• Safer links – Optional page preview before you run into surprises.
• Readable links – User tags.
• Bookmarklet – Use the service from your browser.

FreeTextHost allows you to host text without having to sign up or give any personal information. One possible usage for this is to host code snippets, but it can be used for just about anything. The process is simple, enter your text in the designated box, click the "Host It" button, a randomly generated URL will be provided.

Features:

• No registration required
• Max characters: 50,000
• Admin password to edit or delete text
• Viewing password
• Preformatted text
• Clickable links within text