Aside from shortening URLs and making them nicer to look at, what do you get from URL shorteners that you can't get from direct URLs?

Question

Aside from shortening URLs (for character limitations like in Twitter) and making them nicer to look at, what do you get from URL shorteners that you can't get from direct URLs? I'd specifically like to focus on the data/stats side.

My understanding is that there are statistics you can get from shortened URLs that are not available with direct URLs. I vaguely recall that some of them related to where (what sites) the link was posted as well as some other things.

Answer 1

1. You can track everyone who clicks on the link. Say you link to a Microsoft security update. If you link directly to it, you'll never know who clicks on your link. The shorteners can let you know who clicks.

2. Sadly, it can be used to hide malware. People won't click on http://evilsite.com/evil_exe but a shortener will get more people to click.

3. Some are fun, like shadyURL

4. Long links in email can sometimes break depending how your linebreaks work. Though now we can't click links in email anyway.

5. It's somewhat possible to say a tiny URL in a podcast or other audio stream, well, maybe. Usually a well named domain and URL would be better.