So, as the title states quite clearly, I have this sudden obsession with Short URLs. Well, actually, not so “sudden”, but these past few days I’ve just hit rock bottom.

The obsession surfaced since I started using Twitter. I just *had* to get a hold of the shortest URL ever, doesn’t matter if there’s still a ton of characters left in the textbox, I needed (for some really freakish weird reason) my link to be shorter. Well it did start out with me just trying to comply with the 140 characters allowed, but eventually the obsession rose from there, up to the point where the number of characters already became irrelevant to me. It became personal.

I was using bit.ly before, until I saw Is.gd being used by other people, and I said to myself, “OMG, this one makes shorter URLs!”, so I started using that instead, quite happy and pleased with myself for such a great discovery.

Then I took the obsession along with me to my Forum signatures. Most forums (if not all) limit the number of characters you can use in your signature. At a certain webmaster forum I’m at, it is crucial for me to fit ALL links that lead to all of my sales threads in my signature (because the more exposure, the more possibilities at getting sales, right?), but this could not be done with the normal thread URLs, so I did what I did best and shortened those URLs with my new found gem, URL shortening site: Is.gd.

Finally, everything fit, however I was not left with enough room for more detailed descriptions for each link, so I had to make do with my shortened descriptive anchor texts, which at that time I already was ecstatic about (Imagine, I cheated the system! And I was still able to use an anchor text for each link! I fit what would not have fit in a million years, I was so proud and I felt cool ).

Now.. One day (today, to be exact), while I was merrily browsing the forum, something unsightly caught my eye. I noticed a member with links in his signature, I hovered over these links and my jaw literally dropped. His links (as shown on my status bar), led to a specific U.nu! There were other 4 characters trailing the link, but my eye was simply focused on the domain name itself. Surely enough, I fled to the scene of the crime, and guess what I found? An even shorter URL shortening site! How the heck did I just find out about this?

So I immediately updated my forum signature links using this new URL shortening site: U.nu, and wow, I was even able to change my font to Georgia and add italics for them too! So now, not only am I able to link to my sales threads, and use anchor texts, I’m able to make my signature look prettiful as well!

So, as what one would expect, I felt ridiculously high. I just found the best URL shortening site ever, my goals in life are achieved. So I spent a few hours looking around the beautiful site U.nu, studying their API, and just basically love-making with the webpage. Until… I took notice at one of their Google Adsense ads, showing a “URL shortening site” whose URL was supposedly a certain “5.gp“. At this point, although my excitement was quick to soar once again, I was much calmer since after all, I already WAS using U.nu, and both sites have the exact number of characters, no one’s shorter than the other, so I was safe (or so I thought).

Still curious, I immediately typed “5.gp” to my address bar to check the site out. The site was plain, and U.nu looked SO much better so I wasn’t even going to switch my loyalty over and quickly decided that the visit was a waste of time.. But like the addict that I was (and still am), before leaving, I tried to shorten my site’s URL (Cute-Spot.com) with their tool, just for kicks.

As I was about to exit their site’s tab, the shortened URL caught my eye. The trailing characters were not 4 characters long, but 3. This is when 5.gp officially beat U.nu

Right now, I am a loyal user of 5.gp and love them to the core (I guess advertising DOES pay, LOL). They provide me with the shortest URLs I could ever need, and I don’t see myself using another URL shortening service anytime soon.

So that’s the story of me and my weird obsession with URL shortening sites. Hope I helped you find YOUR favorite URL shortening site today.

EDIT: Damn, I’m good at reviews! 5.gp should totally be paying me for this.