Shortening links using special services, such as yt.be or goo.gl, is useful in many work areas. The world-famous YouTube and Google have long developed their own link shorteners for many purposes.
yt.be is a shortened domain owned by YouTube and used to create short links to YouTube videos, channels, or other resources. This service serves YouTube users and has many useful features:
It allows you to share videos on popular social networks where there is a character limit, such as Twitter.
Automatically shortens a long link so a YouTube user can easily distribute it.
Supports compatibility with QR codes that require short URLs.
Therefore, if you see the link yt.be/XXXX, this is an official YouTube redirect. You can open it and not worry about data security.
In addition to YouTube, Google also previously had its own link shortener. This is a service with the domain goo.gl. Today, the service is no longer working, but it has been quite popular since 2009. goo.gl not only shortened long links, but also provided detailed statistics on them, for example, user devices, and geographical data of visitors. The link shortener was integrated with Google Analytics.
Today, you can still find shortened links on the Internet through goo.gl, but they mainly work through redirects.
Why are long link-shortening services so popular? Firstly, because of their convenience, aesthetics, and functionality. They allow you to simplify long URLs, making them short and easy to remember or copy. In addition, convenient analytics and click tracking are useful for marketers who run advertising campaigns. Link shorteners remain a useful tool for marketing, social networks, and traffic analytics. Therefore, large companies develop their own link-shortening tools for user convenience. In addition to yt.be and the no longer working goo.gl, there are quite a few different services on the market for shortening long links, including many new ones. But still, if you choose a shortening service, it is better to analyze the reviews of other users and check the stability of such a service. After all, this direction depends on how long your shortened link will work on the Internet and whether users will be able to open it if necessary.
A short link is one of the indispensable marketing tools, so you just need to choose a reliable URL-shortening service and use shortened URLs to promote your services or products.