‘So you want a URL shortener for Facebook? Learn what options you have for shortening links on the biggest social media platform in the world.’
Does Facebook accept URL shorteners?
It depends, Facebook marks some of the URL shorteners services as unsafe and abusive.
This is for the fact that many hackers and spammers use these services for malicious purposes, like phishing and making quick money out of users who visit their links.
But some services still work well on Facebook.
Read on to learn about the different options you have for creating Facebook short links.
Does Facebook accept bitly links?
As for the time of this writing (2021), Facebook does accept bitly links, not only that, but it also accepts tinyURL links, so you can use bitly or tinyURL on Facebook.
But you have more alternatives you can choose from.
Read on to learn how you can shorten your long URL for Facebook.
How do you shorten a URL for Facebook?
Very easily, all you need to is to choose the service you want to use, you have 2 main options:
Both of these services work well on facebook, so you can easily create your short links with one of them.
One downside to tinyURL is that it does not allow you to track clicks for free, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan in order to get access to full analytics. Something that bitly offers for free.
The Flipmsg URL shortener also gives you the ability to shrink your links, and it gives you robust analytics and click tracking for free ,which is even better than the 2 options above.
It has unique features like traffic quality score and segmentation of the traffic to traffic tiers, which can be handy if you are buying or selling traffic, using PPC or participating in traffic exchanges..
Read on to learn how you can use branded URL shortener with your own brand name and what are the benefits.
How to use Branded links on Facebook?
One of the best ways to create branded links, is to use a service like rebrandly, this service helps you to create branded short links for your brand.
It saves you the time and effort of installing your own URL shortener script on your own domain.
Using branded links prevent Facebook from blocking your short links due to other users misuse of the service. In addition, branded links have proven to boost CTR by 30%!.
Branded links are also good for building brand awareness and reputation, more people will get aware of your brand.
A service like rebrandly gives you the ability to track the clicks on your short links, and also gives you up to 5 custom branded domain links with the free plan.
But what about using a self hosted script on your own domain?
Read on to learn how you can host your own URL shortener on your own domain without using any third party services.
Self Hosted URL Shortener Scripts (Host your own URL shortener)
If you use self hosted scripts, you can install the script on your own domain, and then have your own branded links without using a service like rebrandly.
This way you are completely independent of any third party service, and your links are branded and unique. Nobody else on the internet has short links similar to yours.
Also , you are not affected by other users' misbehaviour.
It has all the benefits of a branded link , like higher clickthrough rate and brand building benefits.
Probably the best self hosted script available now, is the POLR project, which is free and open source. You can download it and install it on your domain.
Want to know more about the Facebook URL shortener? Continue reading…
Does Facebook have a URL shortener, and how can I use it?
Facebook doesn't have it’s own URL shortener as of 2021, this means that you need to use an external service, or host your own URL shortener on your own domain.
But , there is a workaround, you can paste your long URL into the input box when you create a new facebook post
Then, wait for the preview image to load, after the image finished loading, just delete your long URL, the image itself is now representing the destination link.
And the long URL doesn't exist anymore.
Does Facebook ads allow bitly links?
The short answer is Yes, Facebook ads do allow short links from bitly and other services.
But if you want more robust analytics, and if you want the ability to delete your links whenever you want, we suggest you use the Flipmsg URL shortener.
Which gives you robust free analytics for your short links, it’s especially great if you are using Facebook ads or Google ads for that matter.
In addition you can delete your short links at any time, something you can not do with bitly, unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
How can I shorten a Facebook page URL?
Just like any other long URL, to shorten your Facebook page URL, you have few options:
- Bitly - free and has built-in stats
- tinyURL - free, built-in stats only for the paid plan
- Flipmsg URL Shortener - free, with robust analytics, segmentation to traffic tiers and traffic quality score.
- Rebrandly - if you want to create branded links with your own domain
These are the main options you have, there are many more services out there to choose from.
Can my account get banned for using shortened links on Facebook?
Facebook won’t ban your account just because you have used a URL shortener, but it can disallow some services on the platform.
it seems that they change their mind about the subject quite often.
So you can expect changes about this subject in the future.
At this point the Google URL shortener is not available anymore, and all other URL shorteners are allowed on facebook.
Continue reading to learn about an alternative to bitly and tinyURL.
Good Alternative to Bitly and TinyURL
Now you have an alternative to bitly and tinyURL, the tool is called the Flipmsg URL shortener.
This tool gives you everything bitly and tinyURL give you and much more.
For example:
- You can use special characters in your short link slug
- You have robust analytics for free
- You have segmentation to traffic tiers
- You have quality score for your traffic
- You can delete your short links at any time
- Real time stats
- You drop affiliate cookies on your link visitors which allows you to build an online business that consists of referrals.
- You earn lifetime affiliate commissions from these referrals from account upgrades, coins and ad credits.
In addition you have another tool called poll links, which allows you to shorten a link, and send users to a poll.
Users see a question, and they can select an appropriate answer from a list of options.
Then you can redirect them to any location you want based on the answer they have selected.
Conclusion:
In the past, Facebook used to block all URL shorteners, we talk about 2009-2010, due to abuse of these services by hackers and spammers.
Since then, Facebook found solutions to handle abusive behaviour from users, and now again ,it allows using URL shorteners on it’s platform.
Helpful Resources:
- Flipmsg URL shortener - the best free alternative to bitly and tinyURL.
- Bitly URL shortener - great for creating facebook short links, with analytics.
- tinyURL shortener - great for creating facebook short links, without analytics.
- Rebrandly URL shortener - great for creating branded links.
- POLR Project- great self hosted script to create on your own URL shortener on your own domain.
Share this post with your audience on Pinterest (1000x1500)
