It’s a fair question… As a URL shortener and a company that specializes in everything to do with links, it’s something we get asked about quite a lot. So we thought we’d give you the entire breakdown on this secretly evolving industry. Find out how you can use a link shortener to your advantage. Let’s jump right in… What is a URL shortener? A URL shortener is a simple tool that takes a long URL and turns it into whatever URL you would like it to be. What is a URL Shortener? How to plug a URL into a URL shortener What is a URL Shortener? How to plug a URL into the Rebrandly URL shortener It couldn’t be any simpler than that. I want to clarify that a URL shortener is the same as a link shortener… is the same as a link shrinker… a link compressor… a URL condenser… a vanity URL creator… I think that’s them all covered. They are all different ways of saying the same thing, which is that we want to take something long and ugly, then make it short and cute. To keep it simple, I will stick Cork House Clearance Services with the term URL shortener from today until the day I die. What is a Custom URL Shortener? A custom, or branded URL shortener, is when you’ve connected your own custom domain to a URL shortener that acts as a base for all the short links you create. Instead of using a generic domain such as bit.ly or rebrand.ly, you can pick your own. It’s perfectly explained in this gif: using your own custom domain when sharing links online as it leads to increased link trust, brand awareness, and click-through rate. If you want to find out more about the difference between branded and generic short links, you can check out the video below: A Brief History of URL Shorteners Since the dawn of the internet, links have been the way to get from one place to another online. Think about it, you either start by searching for something and then clicking a link, or by typing a link directly into your browser’s address bar.