Generating multiple short URLs

October 11, 2012 1:45 PM

I need a way to generate multiple (5, to be exact) unique short URLs for a single long URL, and I need to be able to track basic click metrics for each of the unique short URLs. Is this possible in bitly or any mainstream URL shortener that offers fairly robust analytic capabilities/tools?
posted by downing street memo to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Best answer: not exactly what you're looking for but... smarturl's iQID function (more info here) allows you to annotate and comment the same url, so you can have detailed metrics based on where the link was shared.
posted by raihan_ at 1:54 PM on October 11, 2012

A kludgy workaround, in case you don't find what you're looking for, would be to create five identical landing pages on the long URL's domain, then feed each of those five into goo.gl (which has some of the best stats for a URL shortener, IMO).
posted by jbickers at 1:57 PM on October 11, 2012

Best answer: Bitly generates the same shorthand when you reenter a URL. Ow.ly, however, will give you a new one each time. Examples below. I use owl.ly as part of Hootsuite, a third party Twitter client; in that environment, these links are trackable. I assume you could register with owl.ly independently, if you don't have or want Hootsuite.

http://ow.ly/epuJZ
http://ow.ly/epuND
http://ow.ly/epuPl
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 1:58 PM on October 11, 2012

I would just use your favorite shortener and add a "hash buster" query parameter:

http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html =>

http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html?z=1
http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html?z=2
http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html?z=3
http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html?z=4
http://downingstreetmemo.com/important.html?z=5
posted by jjwiseman at 2:12 PM on October 11, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks all! Just realized that the ow.ly workaround works on goo.gl, too, so I think we'll go with that. Appreciate the help!

(smarturl looks very cool but I've noticed shorturls have to have a "brand" name, or people won't trust them)
posted by downing street memo at 2:22 PM on October 11, 2012