What is is.gd?

is.gd is a service that shortens URLs such as web addresses. This is useful in many circumstances (see below) e.g. in email clients that break long URLs.

For example, you can turn

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode
=&q=louth&ie=UTF8&z=12&iwloc=addr&om=1

http://is.gd/1

Our goal is to allow shortening URLs to the maximum extent technically possible.

Uses for is.gd

Here are just a few of the many uses for is.gd's URL shortening service: -

• Shorten web addresses for emails, forum posts, blogs etc. which cannot handle long URLs and might wrap them, making them unclickable
• Lower the character count when texting web addresses to a mobile phone
• Hide the real URLs of affiliate links from visitors to your site
• Obscure your real email address from bots which harvest them to spam (enter an address like mailto:myaddress@myisp.com)
• Circumvent protections on sites which don't allow direct links to a competitor's site (if you are violating a site's terms you do so at your own risk)
• Clean up bookmarks for social bookmarking sites or sites with low character limits like Twitter
• If you dislike a website and have to mention it (e.g. when complaining about it), link via is.gd so that your link does not help the site's search engine positioning

Certain uses of is.gd are forbidden, for example use in unsolicited commercial email (SPAM).

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