By Fred Langa The compact URLs produced by services such as TinyURL, bit.ly, is.gd, and many others are convenient and save space, but they can also be used to hide the identity of malicious sites.
Fortunately, there are several ways to peek behind a shortened URL to see exactly where the link will take you — before you click it!
In fact, every URL-shortening service I'm aware of offers one or more ways to preview the real destination of a shortened link.
For example, here's a typical bit.ly URL that I created. All it does is take you to the windowssecrets.com home page, but there's no way to know that in advance — it's a blind link:
http://bit.ly/10Sjt
Let's say that (gasp!) you don't trust me, so you want to see where the link really goes before you click it.
It's easy: all you have to do is copy the link, paste it into the address bar of any browser window or tab, and add a plus sign to the end, like this:
http://bit.ly/10Sjt+
Adding a plus sign to the end of any bit.ly URL brings you to a special bit.ly page that shows you information about the link, including the full, expanded URL. Using the information on that bit.ly page, you can decide whether the link is safe and worth following.
TinyURL has a similar option. But instead of adding a plus sign at the end of a link, you prepend the word preview. For example, here's a regular TinyURL link to the Windows Secrets home page:
http://tinyurl.com/6u5ba
Copy that link into the address bar of your browser and add the word preview:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6u5ba
Now the link will bring you to a preview page that displays the full, expanded URL
