What Is TinyURL? Is It Safe? What Its Own Pages Say
TinyURL turns a long link into a short one. Here's what it does, whether its links expire, what you can change afterwards, and whether it's safe to click short links, based on TinyURL's own help pages.
Transcript
The full spoken transcript, split by chapter.
- 0:00What TinyURL does
- TinyURL turns a long link into a short one. That's the whole job. Here's what it does, whether it expires, and whether it's safe. On TinyURL, you paste a long address in, and it hands you back a short one. Same destination, fewer characters. That's the whole trick.
- 0:17Does a TinyURL expire?
- Does it expire? TinyURL's own pages say no. Links made on TinyURL never expire, as long as they follow TinyURL's terms of use. They also call their links reliable and secure.
- 0:30What you can change afterwards
- What can you do afterwards? On TinyURL's pages, click analytics and editing are listed under the Pro plan, and links made on the free plan can't be edited once they're made. They update those pages, so check them before you decide.
- 0:44Is it safe?
- Is it safe? Here's the thing. A short link hides where it goes. That's true of every link shortener, not just this one. So before you click a short link from someone you don't know, check where it leads.
- 0:58Change a link after you've shared it
- In Linkly, you can change where a link goes after you've shared it. Click edit, type the new address, check the preview, and save. Anyone with the old short link lands on the new page. And you can see every click, including where it came from. Here, most came from Instagram, then Facebook. That's usually what people were really looking for. So that's TinyURL. A short link that, by its own pages, doesn't expire, and what you can do afterwards depends on the plan. It's free to start with Linkly, and everything you need is just below this video.
