I have already talked about the services for creating short URLs, that is shortened website addresses, but it is worth taking up the topic in light of the news of one of these online services, goo.gl. In a web made of social networks, people love to share links to pages and news that they find interesting, to make them read to friends or contacts of Twitter, Facebook or others. A service to shorten the addresses of web pages serves two things that should not be underestimated:
1) To share web pages, rather than with long addresses, with very short urls.
2) To keep statistics on clicks made by other people on shared links .
Goo.gl is the Google URL Shortener and has recently been updated with some more convenient functions to follow the trend of shared links on the internet.
UPDATE: The Google Goo.gl shortener has been withdrawn, for alternatives see How to create shortened URLs and addresses and shorten site links
By going to the Goo.gl page and logging in with your Google account, you can create the short url of an internet address, simply by making the copy and paste in the box and pressing the "Shorten" button. By immediately pressing the Control-C key you make the "copy of the short address which you can then paste on Twitter, Facebook or an Email.
Goo.gl offers real-time statistics of how many times those links are clicked offering precise statistics on how successful sharing has been. In the last update, it was possible to hide some selected short links from the list in order to simplify the display of statistics. Simply select them from the list and press the Hide URL button. Furthermore, it is always possible to display individual statistics for each page shared with Goo.gl, even by other people, by adding a "+" at the end of the shortened address. In this summary screen you will notice a button to report spam. It is indeed true that behind these abbreviated URLs you can hide anything and, therefore, even spam or not very recommendable sites, which contain information that does not correspond to what is described or with massive advertising.
