Tr.im Dies, Do You Know Where Your Links Are?

By: Michelle MacPhearson
Submitted: 2009-09-25 15:14:14
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As if to put a little exclamation point on Saturday’s post, “Twitter’s DOS Attack (And Why Social Media Sucks)” the URL shortening service Tr.im announced Sunday that they’re closing their doors.

We marketers use different methods to shorten URL’s, and for different reasons.

While on Twitter, we may shorten a long URL just so it doesn’t take up the 140 character limit Twitter imposes.

But we also use URL shorteners sometimes to mask affiliate links. http://yourclickbankid.clickbakproduct.hop.clickbank.net is unattractive, long and kinda weird for your site visitors to click on. Instead, we use one URL shortening method or another to make those long, ugly affiliate links into something a bit more palatable.

And as such, we’re dependent on whatever method we use to shorten those long URL’s to remain *working* – if we choose a method of URL shortening that goes the way of Tr.im, our links may no longer work!

The lifetime of a single Tweet is minutes, perhaps a few days – but for the most part, a tweet and any link associated with it doesn’t necessarily need to “live” forever. Shortened some tweeted links with a now-defunct URL shortening service 14 months ago? Probably not going to cut into your bottom line.

But an old friend of mine used to always say, “Safety first!” And as such, I use Bit.ly to shorten any URL’s I tweet. Why? Bit.ly is Twitter’s default URL shortening service. While nothing is ever 100%, I’ll assume due to their association with Twitter that Bit.ly will be around for a while and as such, my tweeted links will live on, should they need to.

(Bit.ly also gives you stats on the links you send though the service, if you have a free account with them.   You can see which tweets you send out get the most clicks, which is great to see what your audience responds to most. Finally, the Twitter client Seesmic will allow you to integrate you Bit.ly account so you can shorten URL’s to your Bit.ly account from within Seesmic.)

So on the Twitter front, we’re ok. But what if you’re using a URL shortening service to mask affiliate links elsewhere (your money site, blog, or external sites, like Squidoo)?

You’ve got to change those links to be links that you have control of!

You absolutely *must* use a method of shortening/redirection that is dependent on your own domain. That way you have control of the links and you know they’ll always work.

If you’re using a Wordpress setup, you can use the plugin Redirection to do just that – Crowd Mountain members know alot of the little tips and tricks for using this plugin. But the basics premise is that it’ll take http://yourclickbankid.clickbakproduct.hop.clickbank.net and change it to http://www.yoursite.com/product/ – and it’ll give you stats on the number of clicks the link has received so you can track reader’s interest and conversions.

What’s more, if you find out that the product you’re directing visitors to just isn’t converting, you can change where your redirection link goes to to test another product, without having to edit the links you’ve placed on your site or over the ‘net.

The point I was making in “Twitter’s DOS Attack (And Why Social Media Sucks)” and the point I’m making here is that you must be in control of your business, particularly the elements of your business that bring you leads, subscribers, sales and ultimately, your income.

Depending on any one (free) service to host your content or lead visitors to the “Buy Now” page will ultimately award you with a headache, at best!

Article source: Expert Articles