Twitter shorten and check url

Twitter can now shorten and check the link before you click it!

In the coming weeks, Twitter will start to see the rollout of our Twitters new link wrapping service t.co which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and Twitter will then forward you on to the destination URL if everything looks good. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; Twitter expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for you?

• A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title. (Which has better scope for usability and SEO)
• You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
• When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. There hope is to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to users over time.

So no more bit.ly or strange hidden URL’s that can take you off to a site that is unknown and worst of all unchecked!
Thanks to Twitter for implanting this and utilizing the new .co TLD extension in a way that works well for everyone.