Thread: .me or .com

hello!

I want to make a URL Shorten site. So, I am confused that which extention to buy because most url shortener sites i have seen are not at .com...
and its also difficult to find short lenght name in .com's.

So, can anyone suggest me, with which I should go?

.me/.com/ or suggest any other extention

Yeah, the most URL shorter websites are running on not COM ltd. IMO this is because all short COM domains are taken.

My suggestion is to choose a cool name, which is easy to keep in mind.

Well you need a short and sweet URL, so If you find any short URL in .com TLD then that is great of you cannot then you can move to others like .me

all 3 character and 4 character domains are take... you can buy llll.com easily but that is hard to remind url.
but here are still lot of available 5 char. pronounceable domains, And that is the best thing i can suggest.

URL Shortening services are awful because of security and i cant think of a use for them except twitter and maybe SMS
And when creating your site,keep in mind,that speed is a important factor

What's the revenue model for URL shorteners?

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

What's the revenue model for URL shorteners?

There are two main approaches to running a URL shortener: a "basic" approach that simply does a redirect and a more advanced approach with value added services (like analytics).

A basic redirect comes in two types:

1. A proper HTTP redirect (a 30x code, of which only 301 is of proven SEO value).
2.a. A cloaked redirect in which you redirect to a page on the shortening service's website that displays two frames with one frame being the destination page and the other frame being a page you control.

2.b. An interstial redirect in which the initial landing is a page on the service's website that "refreshes" after a few seconds to the destination.
If you do option 1, then you can't make money off the redirects. You can try to make money off the people using your site. If you look at tinyurl.com, that's exactly what they do: find the AdSense block on the right hand side edge of the site.

Both of options 2 offer you a real chance to display advertising. Adjix does that and I have no idea about the kind of revenue they're seeing, but you can see their payout rates at http://web.adjix.com/AdjixLinkerInfo.html .

Option 2b is very interesting but the most annoying for the user IMHO. Linkbee allows you put interstial ads (see http://www.linkbee.com/create.php ).
The value add services on top of redirection are very valuable. There are two kinds:

a. Services that add value to the short URL creator (i.e. the service user). A great example is analytics which tells you a lot about who's clicking through. Competing on analytics is an effective business strategy There are other kinds of value add services, some of which tie back to options 2a and 2b above (i.e. get the user to earn money from their links).

b. Services that are unrelated to URL shortening per se, but are valuable. I've seen a few comments in this thread about the value of the data gained from tracking traffic. I'll leave this one to your imagination - run wild!
There is a third way to make money: white-label services. I won't explain the business logic behind this, so I'll just point you to my recent announcement on the Cligs blog: http://cli.gs/MvDp1s . Cligs is offering for-pay fully branded short URLs with the analytics built right in. I know of at least one other service that will launch with a similar product soon (they're in testing!).

So how can you make money? It's a very competitive market, and the cost of entry is tiny, the user loyalty is almost non-existent, and the traffic can be huge requiring good service architecture. My point from the above is that you will be able to make money as there are ways to create value for your users you can charge for, but expect to get a few bruises on the way.

Finally, a personal note: It's a great market to learn business skills in because it's so competitive and the popular services are run by some really smart people. Can you really value the lessons you learn from competing in this market? It beats any MBA you care to point to.

Read more: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508132