URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an internet resource. URL is basically the pattern on which any website has been structured. To allow a website to be accessed, it should have an URL. Most of the time people see that URLs are pretty small and often they wonder that why anything that is already so small needs to be made any smaller but they don't realize that this does not happen often.
Most of the time the URLs are extremely lengthy, making them impossible to memorize. A lot of people are not aware that a URL consists of three parts which are type, address and path. There is not any complexity in understanding these types as they represent exactly what they say. Type is the category of the URL as in, that what category that URL is in. this makes it easier for the server to search for the file that is required by the user. Address specifies exactly where to look for that specific file so that it can be retrieved easily and finally it comes down to the path. A path is where all the information is present. It has all the files and makes it possible for people to have access to these files for their work and other purposes. People can search for the particular file that they are looking for very easily if they know the URL as it takes them directly to the source, but these URLs are very hard to remember orally because they are very long and also most of the time confusing.
URL shortener service is very popular these days as people have finally realized the advantages of having Short URL. URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a URL may be made shorter in length and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using an HTTP Redirect on a domain name that is short, which links to the web page that has a long URL.
There are several reasons to use URL shortening. The free hosting space provided by access Internet Service Providers (ISP) for its customers may generate an unpleasing address. Some web developers on mainstream sites tend to pass descriptive attributes in the URL to represent command structures, data hierarchies, transaction paths or session information and this often results in a URL that contains a large number of characters, is awkward to reproduce and impossible to remember. Copying a URL that is hundreds of characters long can only really be successfully done by copy-and-paste. Trying to type one by hand will consume much time and may result in more errors. Thus a short URL is more useful to write in a hard copy publication (printed magazine or book, etc.) or in situations when a very long string may be broken into multiple lines (some email software and internet forums), making copying difficult.
On Twitter and some instant-messaging services, there is a limit on the total number of characters that can be used in a message. Using a URL shortener can make it easier to include a URL within a short message. Some shortening services can generate URLs that are short and human-readable. The URL shortening sites also provide detailed information on the clicks the link receives which can give a huge benefit to the website owner/webmaster. This can be simpler than setting up a server side analytics engine.
URL shortener make work easier and more efficient. With it, people can work on the internet and access their files very easily and instantly.
Short URLs are also at times called Tiny URL due to their small size. But these work as efficiently as the longer ones.