URL shortener
A Uniform Resource Locator(URL) is an Internet address of a web page. Because the URL contains the service, the domain name, the path on the computer, and a special page identifier, Internet addresses (URLs ) can be cryptic and consist of many letters, numbers, and characters.
Here is an example: http://www.itwissen.info/definition/lexikon/compact-disc-read-only- memory-extended- architecture- CD-ROM-XA.html.
However, in many communication services, you can only transmit a limited amount of characters, for example, in the short message service( SMS) and Twitter, the character limit is 140 characters, and in other services such as blogs, social networks or links, the long URLs are extremely impractical.
For these reasons and for handling newsletters, forwarding URLs, thumbnail previews and other applications, there are free URL services that turn the long web addresses into short URLs. One of these services for short URLs is TinyURL. In this context, one also speaks of URL Shortening or URL Shortener.
The shortened URLs usually have a character count of significantly fewer characters than the original URL. If you work with short URLs, the request goes through the URL service provider, which converts the short URL into the original URL and forwards the request to the target URL. Besides tinyurl.com, other short URL services include bit.ly, bitly.com, dwarfurl.net and is.gd.