A few months ago, I heard about www.budurl.com, and how helpful it was. They are based right here in Austin, and the company is run by one of my web hosts. I first heard about it from someone at my SEO company. I was not particularly enthused.
Later, while I was on Twitter, someone else recommended it, but I still resisted because I assumed that anything truly useful couldn't be that easy to set up. Now, I'm not sure how I got along so well without it for so long.
So, what IS BudURL and how can it help your business?
BudURL.com is a site which allows you to easily "shrink" URLs to a more manageable length. Here's one recent example of mine.
I turned this URL: http://activerain.com/blogsview/827695/Jason-I-dont-mean-to-be-difficult-but
into this:
Needless to say, this comes in handy when you want to post links with limited space, such as the 140 characters allowed on Twitter.
"But Twitter automatically shrinks URLs, right?"
Well, yes, but how do you track the number and source of the clicks? This is one reason that BudURL is worth your time. They offer extensive tracking (source, time, etc.) for these URLs that you have created. Here's a screenshot from the last few that I set up there:
As you can see, it allows me to enter a brief description with each one, and I can see the total number of times that each one has been accessed. There are more detailed stats available, too, complete with graphs, starting a $4/month.
BudURL would be a great tracking device for an email campaign, or anywhere that you are curious about who actuallly looks at your links. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and your own website are all great places to use this site.
I tested it the other day, and I found that you can call the link whatever you like (e.g. "Austin Homes for Sale") and still have it link to the BudURL of your choice. Cool!
Thanks for reading - enjoy!
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Jason, this is an interesting company and offering. Kind of like the free tinyurl feature plus tracking with the tracking tool.
In one of your recent Twitter messages, I noted you were using this and have established an account. Perhaps siince it is snowing here now, and geting icy, I'll take the time to put it into action. Thanks for the reminder Jason.
Sounds a lot like www.tinyurl.com that I have been using for years to shorten links. Although with something like AR, it's just better to use keywords and do an html link, sometimes you have to have the URL to get the point across and this type of service helps a ton!
Too easy Jason, there just has to be a catch. lol
Hi Jason;
Great company and super idea, good luck. Happy Holiday!
Hi Jason as someone else mentioned, this sounds just like tinyurl.com. I think the tracking feature sounds great though.
Jason...
Interesting ... I'm going to take a look at this. THX
Thanks for the info - don't think I'm there yet b/c my email campaigns are already tracked, but no doubt useful to the right people. I was wondering about the "tinyurl" stuff, seeing it all over twitter. One invention spurs 100 others. Funny world we live in.
What a handy tool! I'm still learning, but this one definitely goes on my list to tackle soon. Thanks for sharing, TCT!
When I first started reading, I was thinking... who needs that? As you mention, Twitter shrinks it automatically. Then I started thinking about the tracking and can really see where this would be handy. Appreciate you sharing the web address.
Jason, very very very cool ! Great application for twitter and love the tracking idea ! Thanks for sharing ! Will check out the site tomorrow !
Thanks for sharing Jason, looks like a very helpful tool.
Jason... thank you very much. I am just starting to learn how to use Twitter and Facebook.. and that is the thing that annoys me the most, that Twitter only allows up to 140 characters. Facebook is a tad better, even though it doesn't have a counter, probably about 160.... and someone showed me how to do this on twitter... but I got lost. Besides, as you said, it shares stats with you... thanks
Very interesting Jason. Thanks for the link. Still trying to figure out the Twitter thing.
Very cool! I've been using TinyURL, but this seems quite a bit more useful.
Thanks for sharing Jason!
Jason, While I'm the tech challenged person in my home, hubby, my webmaster, will love this. He's always asking me how I track things from my social networking sites. I always look at him like a deer in the headlights. Wait until I show him this! He'll think I'm SO darn smart, lol. Thanks!
Jason, thank you so much for sharing this useful information. I'm off to learn!
Jason, thanks for the share. I have been using tinyurl but will consider budurl.
Jason..I have been looking for help in this very way, I'll give it a try to see if this the short cut I'm looking for.
Steve
This makes a lot of sense and is another great tool for me to use. Thank you
Awesome, Jason. Always looking for new tools and this looks like something I can use.
Sounds like another great tool to work with. Thanks for the heads up.
This is the first I have heard of it, thanks for sharing it with us! Will look into it.
Jason.. this sounds pretty cool.. Of course I'm still scratching my head to figure it out.. LOL
Jason...sounds like a great tool. I've not used Twitter that much, as it's not that big of a thing here in Atlanta yet. I've talked to lots of "kids" and they have no idea what it is! LOL!
John Novak did a post about Twittertise which I have not checked out yet...just did it yesterday. Sounds like it might do the same thing, but for free? Not sure!
My list of sites to go to, learn and all is as long as my arm! UGH!
Jason,
This is fantastic stuff! I've learned more about the internet from you and other "Active Rain Educators" than anywhere else. Thanks!
Mike in Tucson
Thanks for sharing your information with all of us! Active Rain is just such a cool website!
Jason - I've seen this and wondered what it was. Knew about tinyurl also and just started using that more since blogging. The tracking part is very interesting though, to know how many aggregate hits you have had on a blog would be some very good info. Once again, thanks and Merry Christmas!
I have sitemeters all over my site ... Feejit is pretty good at tracking incoming clicks. You can watch it live.
Jason- Twittertise tracks and shortens urls for free. There is another Twitter app that does some quite extensive tracking, I can not think of the name at the moment.
Thom and Ray and Katerina - Twittertise does appear to have a lot of the same functions, but it is SPECIFIC to Twitter.
I use BudURL here on AR, Facebook, and even in emails that I send out to track clicks, etc. Twittertise limits you to one site only.
BudURL is free as well, unless you want to track over 500 URLs at once. Also, there is now a small fee of $4/month to get the more extensive stats there.
That will come in "super" handy. Thanks for that tip!
Crouch - I'm cracking my knuckles and ready to evolve. I've only experienced a small part of this SEO journey and will adapt accordingly. This sounds like something more than worthwhile to check out. Lots of web time is on the horizon, I smell push-ups between log-ins just to keep the body in working order as well:)
Very useful! Thanks Jason. For those twitter fanatics out there. There are other alternatives.
What a great service - worth looking into... I like the statistics part.
Jason,
Thanks for the tip. I am simply envy how you manage to do all that, and still not to fall behind. Good for you
Jason,
When I first read this, I thought, "so what - Twitter reduces url's" - but this makes much more sense. Thanks for another great tip, Jason.
Tina in Virginia
Shrinking is a good thing...url's, waistlines, inventory, interest rates, days on market....Happy holidays !
Jason, Thanks for looking into this and sharing with all of us.
Good stuff. Keep those ideas coming.
Being able to track the results is the key. That would be great information to be able to break down and see whats working and how.
Jason - another useful tool and link, thanks for posting, I like this idea of tracking to specific blog posts.
I love the URL tracking, I use trackurl.com for twtitter.
Thank you for sharing this. I have so many tools I forget to use them.
Great information Jason, thanks for sharing it. I am going to go and check it out !
There is just so much stuff out there that are helpful tools and you always seem to be right there with the information on them. Thank you sir.
Jason - That sounds pretty cool. I'm not sure how to use it yet, but I'm sure that I should be! :)
Jason - thanks for the details on this application. I knew about it but have not broken out of my TInyURL pattern - now I will. I have found that Twitter does NOT always automatically shorten long URLs.
Jeff
thanks for the tip, have used TinyURL.com in the past, but this seems to have more robust tools and features for tracking, etc... look forward to trying it out
Thanks for the heads up big guy. I had never heard of this site before, but I can certainly see how I can make good use of it. Plus the price is right.
Jason: Thanks for this helpful bit of information. I have been using Twhirl, but it does not have the tracking feature (or I haven't found it yet:o)). I'm off to give it a try.
going to hop on the site now -- i love that fact that it can track the data -- Thanks for the heads up! JE
Great idea --- sounds like an interesting and "needed" concept!
This seems like TinyURL. The difference is that it offers a tracking feature?
Jason, another tool! You are tooooo much. Thanks for posting this information.
Christine - Yes, exactly.
Oh my -- more tools! I sometimes start to feel a bit overwhelmed with all of these things. However, I thank you for brining this to our attention. I am going to spend some snowy days taking a look at all of these things. This one, in particular, looks very useful.
Hi Jason. Wonderful, wonderful. Thanks so much. I was literally just wondering if something like this existed and here it is. :)
Jason, I was introduced to this last week by David Bullock, one the creators of Obama 2.0, considered by many to be one of the most prolific social media gurus today. And, he lives in Middle Tennessee. We are pretty lucky. Anyway, he strongly recommended it. I am all over it.
Thanks for the nudge
Bo
I bookmarked this Jason, I like the tracking idea. My concern is I already use site meter, getclicky and tinyURL, so I need to see how it compares so I am not duplicating my stat's. Sounds good, I'll investigate further, the Q&A says it helps in SEO so I'm going to explore further.
Jason - You are the man! Thank you very much.
Sounds like tinyurl , which we have used for a long while. Thanks for sharing - will have to go and look at this new tool.
So, it's like Tinyurl? Are they almost the same thing?
This is great! I've been wanting to try mulitple URLs to track the effectiveness of my campaigns, so this is the perfect solution!
This looks like another great tip! Thanks for sharing the info!
Diane - It's like TinyURL with the ability to track the source and number of clicks.
Jason, I am abig fan of the Budurl! It is a great program. I really enjoy tracking my link clicks.
Thanks for sharing this information. It's always great to learn new tricks.
Jason- Thank you for clarifying the use and the extent of the tracking.
I had no idea this existed, thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for sharing. We have been using the tinyurl but this does sound easier!
That looks like a useful tool for me in some of the work that I do. I'm wondering why you didn't set your post up to be re-blogged.
Russel - I thought I had set it up for re-blogging, but I guess not. It's changed now!