A URL shortener is an online tool that enables you to take a long link and create a new, shorter one that takes people to the same page.

Let clarify that a URL shortener is the same as a link shortener, shrinker, compressor, condenser, or short URL.

Everything means the same thing - short, simple, and cute URL.

These days, most link shorteners allow you to track your link metrics (clicks analytics, custom domains, branded links, campaign tracking, and much more).

With our module, we deliver the three most popular shorteners: short.io, bitly.com, and rebrandly.com (we plan to add more in the future). All of these shorteners have free plans to help you try them out. Of course, maybe a free plan to meet your expectations will suffice.

The most important thing, that URL shorteners make it easier to share and manage long URLs. This is very useful when sharing URLs on social media, blogs, emails, chats, business cards, A/B testing, magazine, SMS (mobile messages), affiliate links, printing on things, and other channels where length and simplicity are important.

Also, a short link is much easier to memorize, type or even read. Typing and length problems are especially relevant nowadays when a lot of people use mobile phones and social networks.

URLs encoded in two-dimensional barcodes such as QR code are often shortened by a URL shortener in order to reduce the printed area of the code, or allow printing at lower density in order to improve scanning reliability.

Here is a very nice article with 101 ways to use your custom URL Shortener: https://blog.rebrandly.com/101-ways-to-use-a-custom-url-shortener/