z 0 w . u s

 

What is Zer0 W's?

z0w.us (pronounced zero-double-you-z) is a private URL shortening service provided exclusively to our clients.

What is a URL?

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. Simply, the URL is the text that tells us how and where to get content on the web.  The most common example would be a web page link like http://www.somewebsite.com/blog_entry_01242010_page2.html.

What is a URL shortening service?

Well, to keep the answer short (pun intended) its a service that makes short URLs out of long ones.

URL-shortening services like z0w.us provides the means to create and manage URLs that are too long to be included in the likes of Tweets, Emails, or Newsletters.  Most URL shortening services also include tracking and analytics which help to identify how many times the link was clicked as well as the source.  Some of the more popular URL shortening services (bit.ly and TinyURL to name a couple) have been around for quite awhile (~2002) and originated with the need to simplify or reduce the number of characters that reference newsgroup postings which are often long and complicated and then later on for Tweets on Twitter which have limited space for content.

 

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Why use a URL shortening service?

 

For those of you that are familiar with services like Twitter it may already be obvious to you--every character counts!  Shorter URLs can also be beneficial to you in your everyday communications including Email and Newsletters.  The service also helps to provide links that fit on a single line.  You may have experienced receiving Emails with links that wrap to more than one line--and when you click on them, you may get unexpected results or cryptic error messages like "404 NOT FOUND!"

Also many of the websites designed today utilize content management systems (like Joomla and Wordpress) that are great at managing content but have very long and detailed urls. By creating shortcuts or aliases to your original content, you are able to insure that your communications are received with their links intact.

Another use of z0w.us' URL shortening service is for social network publishing which allows our customers to publish content once on their website and automatically feed their Twitter and Facebook accounts with content information and the shorter URL that brings your fans and followers back to your website!

Are there any drawbacks to using the shorter URLs?

For the legitimate business the biggest drawback is the lack of tracking of the abbreviated version of your URL and the affect that it may have on your website's search engine results.  Redirecting traffic from one url to another url can impact your SEO performance.  This is resolved by using a specific method for redirecting the url to your site--technically referred to as a 301 redirect.  By using 301 redirects, search engines should ignore the shorter url in favor of the actual location that it links to. z0w.us uses 301 redirects and provides link tracking!

There is another use of using shortened urls that you may have seen that aren't legitimate and is often used by spammers (boo! hiss!) as a means to obfuscate or hide the true destination of the link that you are about to click on!  For this reason some email hosting services have begun to flag messages as spam whose content contains links using public url-shortening services like tinyurl.com and bit.ly.  This decreases the chances that your legitimate communications will be received in the recipient's inbox.

For both of these reasons we have decided to provide our clients a private service URL shortening service and offer additional features such as Social Network re-publishing of their website's content!

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Is it Free?  If not, how much does it cost?

 

No, and "It depends."  The service is not commercially available to the general public.  It is designed specifically for use with our website designs and installations that we build and maintain on behalf of our clients.  The cost can vary in the amount of traffic a website generates and how the service is implemented (see "How does it work?" below.)

How does it work?

z0w.us works in a similar fashion of the public services that are available.  A database of your website's urls are stored along with their shorter version.  Whenever z0w.us receives a request for a shortened link, we redirect it to your site and page where it belongs.  We track the number of times that url is used, and attempt to track where the click originated from.

For email and newsletter tracking, the shortened url can be included in your messages and tracked individually.

The power of z0w.us is in the area of social networking.  With a Social-Enabled website design from us, we can automatically generate the shortened url for your blog entry and automatically re-publish that link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  That means that you only have to post content to your website once, and have your social media network updated instantly with the shortened url referencing the original article or blog entry on your site!

How do I get it?

Be one of our many satisfied customers and have us design a website solution for your business or organization.  If you already have a website by us, just call and ask how we can enhance your solution with z0w.us today!