We have a lot of URL shorteners like Goo.Gl and Bit.Ly. Though each of the URL shorteners give a straight forward URL shortening right from their homepages without even in need to create an account it would be wise to have an account with them and create URLs through the same. We stand to gain a lot of advantages through the same. A few of them are:

 

  1. Tracking and review of the URLs that are created by us
  2. Click Statistics
  3. In future if we want to retire an URL it would be easier for us to locate and achieve the same.

Bit.Ly goes one step further besides giving personalized accounts. They provide application keys for free so that we can programmatically create the URLs through our account.  Also the API documentation for creating Bit.Ly URLs can be found here.