There are tons of URL shorteners on the market and it is a very nice way of making addresses shorter. But sometimes people use URL shorteners and forwarding as a tool of sending you in a wrong direction, somewhere you do not really want to go. That is why it can be useful to see the full address behind a shortened urls before actually pressing it.
Many people use shortened URLs to hide forwarding, to hide affiliate codes and to simply make things look nicer. We do so here on How To Blog Info as well, and from time to time we hide our affiliate links in shortened urls or in URL forwards, so that the user will not really notice them. But, what if you as a user really want to find out if there is an affiliate link in the url, or if you will end up where you have been promised, or if by pressing the URL you will be sent somewhere else than expected? That is when you want to see the full address behind a shortened URL and you want to see where you are sent and redirected as you press the URL.
That can easily be done and here you can find the solution
See full URLS and redirects in links
If you want to visit a website where you can see the full address and number of redirects as you press a link you can for example visit longurl.org. There you can fill in any url in the form and they will at once show you where you will end up if you press the link and also how many redirects, and what kind of redirects, you are sent through before you arrive there. This tool will for sure reveal any affiliate link to you, at least as long as they do not have a direct link (which still works as an affiliate link where all traffic sent from a domain is counted as “affiliate links.” In that case you do not need any special affiliate ID, it is enough for traffic to arrive from that domain. However, that is not dangerous, and affiliate traffic is not dangerous either.
So, you just visit longurl.org and type and URL(s) you are interested in, and you will find out whatever you are looking for in a short while.
See what is hidden behind URL forwards and shortened URLS
Firefox and Chrome extensions showing you full URLs
If you do not want to visit a special website every time you want to find out what is hidden behind an URL forwarder or a shortened URL, you can also use special extensions for Google Chrome and Firefox. In Firefox you can for example search the an extension with the name LongUrl for Firefox. If you use Google Chrome you can search for the extension named LinkPeelr.
Good luck and have fun investigating all those URL forwards and shortened URLS out there.
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