BudURL.com - An Endorsement for This Useful FREE Tool

15 years ago

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:

http://budurl.com/h6t6

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!