The Google URL Shortener (Goo.gl), the Bitly URL shortening service and the Tiny URL service all offer basic click stats. There are no real extra features or services, so this is good choice if you just want to get the job done as fast and as smoothly as possible without all the extra fluff like signing in and CAPTCHAs and other stuff. However, depending on the ad environment, and the pop-up option selected, your user could be left unintentionally stranded. As a result, many have been removed from online registries or shut down by web hosts or internet service providers. In the olden days, if you wanted Google Analytics to track a specific click on a link, you used to have to ask a web developer to fix this up for you. This can be done online, at the web pages of a URL shortening service; to do it in batch or on demand may require the use of an API.
Recently bit.ly announced the addition of a premium service to its URL-tracking system. Bitly declares that even if you have created a custom name in your shortened URL, they will not allow you to edit the web page that it points to you. You can’t deny the usefulness of them with social media (especially Twitter) and the additional layer of analytics you can get on your links.
With this information, you should be able to judge if a site linking to your website is a valid site or not. Top links clicked The URLs that were clicked the most in your campaign. View Click Results on the Links Page The Links page tells you how each URL performed in the campaign. I think a few of these points are worth following up on.
Undo Undo Shorten links ! @sqrl_in 2 Mar 2010 More Ten big ideas from TED - CNN.com - Thanks. Further data will appear in the Behavior > Events pane after a few hours.Track outbound links Find out when users click a link to leave your site. Note: If the address bar is not visible, try scrolling up using your finger. Be sure that you spell gtm.linkClick exactly as it looks: this field is case sensitive. Such scripts avoid many issues with shortening services, keep the domain name as part of the shortened link, and can be made private.
Before You Start Here are some things to know before you begin this process. TweetDeck and Seesmic (TweetDeck’s direct competitor) both offer numerous URL-shortener options (bit.ly, is.gd, TinyURL, and twURL), but only bit.ly offers click tracking. In order to address the fear of linkrot happening when a link shortening service shuts down, the Internet Archive started the 301 Works project in an attempt to preserve the link shortening databases should participating services shut down. Finally, URL shortening sites provide detailed information on the clicks a link receives, which can be simpler than setting up an equally powerful server-side analytics engine, and unlike the latter, does not require any access to the server. You can read more about this in our guide to deeplinking. Link Tracking when Forcing HTTPS with HSTS If your company is considering implementing HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) for your site to ensure visitors may only connect using the more-secure HTTPS, there can be implications for your users’ experience with Sailthru-tracked links if you enable HSTS for all subdomains via the optional includeSubDomains directive. Libya, for instance, exercised its control over the .ly domain in October 2010 to shut down vb.ly for violating Libyan pornography laws. Click the input box under “Update Status” and paste the copied short URL into the box. This is a nice extra feature if branding is important to you or if you want to make your link easier to memorize.