There are only about a handful of Url/ link shortening services with Twitter as a main focus. I have found 4 URL shorteners that I have used for my Tweeting and I have finally found the best service for my needs. The 4 services I have found are TweetBurner, Linkbee, Hoot Suite, and Bit.ly. How I determined the best service for me was based on a few factors. First I wanted to be able to track my links and of the 4 services I mentioned they all have that feature. However they all do not seem to track as well as others, I will go into detail of each service in the modules below. The second feature I looked for was the obvious, the feature of link shortening which they all do well. Some of the shorteners do offer extras such as adding a custom name to your shortened link or integrating Google AdSense to your new link. The ability to Tweet from the link shorten service was an important extra feature to me as it saves time. LinkBee, Hoot Suite and bit.ly have this feature and it is more or less the same quality between the 3 of them. Based on the features I described, my favorite URL/ link shortening service is bit.ly. Check below for a full review of each service.

Of the 4 URL/ link shortening service Tweet Burner offers the least amount of features. It is the most basic of the 4 with only offering link shortening and tracking services. Tweet Burner was the first shortening service I used and I used it for shortening dozens of links. It works well but there are no "bells and whistles" from the service, in fact they can only track your links through their Archive tracking. They have a tab labeled Your Stats but I am not sure what that means, It has been down since before I have used. All in all Tweet Burner is a decent service they do not have any special extra features but they do what they say do.
TweetBurner.com

Linkbee.com is a URL/ link shortening service that has a nice incentive for its users, you can make money. Google AdSense can be integrated into your links with either interstitial or banner ads. If you use linkbee I suggest using the banner ad option over the interstitial ad or none at all. To me interstitial ads always makes me feel like site using them is spammy or of little value. For those who do not know what interstitial ads are they are the type of ads that are displayed on page while you are waiting for your page to load. Then you have t click skip this ad to get to the page you desired in the first place. Linkbee will not make you rich with only earning $1-2 per 1,000 impressions(CPM Rate) but since they are nice enough to give you the opportunity to make some money you may want to try.

There are many useful features of Linkbee in addition to URL/ link shortening, tracking, and earning money with Google AdSense. Sharing pictures on Twitter is great feature of Linkbee and it is a good way to earn some AdSense clicks. Bookmarking is the other special, extra feature of this shortening service. To be honest I am not sure how effective their bookmarking service is, but I say when it comes to bookmarking the more the merrier.

Hoot Suite claims they are the ultimate Twitter tool box and as far as free tools go they are the ultimate tool box by great lengths. This toolbox includes managing multiple accounts, URL shortening/ tracking, and scheduling tweets. They have also just added the ability to integrate Google AdSense to the links you shorten. Ping.fm integration is now available as well. Hoot Suite also offers an awesome twitter add on for your toolbar. My favorite feature is the ability to send Tweets through multiple account at once. So using my self as an example, I can write a update and send it through all 5 of my Twitter accounts. this makes Hoot Suite an excellent marketing/ promotion tool. Please note this great Twitter application is free so if you enjoy Hoot Suite and use it a lot drop them a nice donation as a thank you.

Hoot Suite is a great Twitter application with multiple features as I mentioned above, but as far as their URL/ link shortening service it ranks last of the four shortens I reviewed in this HUB. Most of my poor rating is due to the 15+ minute delay for link tracking and I am not sure of the accuracy of the link tracking. So not only does it take a little bit to get our tracking stats, they always seem to be far lower than what they should be at. I have used Google analytics and affiliate tracking to match my Hoot Suite stats and they do not. Hoot Suite does have some positive features with their link shortening service such as Ping.fm and Google AdSense integration.The Ping.fm integration can be used whether you shorten your link through them our copy and paste in your own, this feature deserve going into a little detail. Ping.fm will Ping your Tweets meaning your message can be sent out to multiple social networks/ bookmarks you belong to. This helps your SEO, I have started to noticed Twitter updates(including my own) getting ranked well in google searches. As soon as you integrate Ping.fm with Hoot Suite it will automatically Ping all of your Tweets. The Google AdSense integration is still in an early stage so it seems to have some bugs like not showing your ad in the top Hoot Suite Bar. This bar is inserted at the top of every page you shorten through them. Even if the Google AdSense is not working the bar does have a purpose as it has a share feature to keep your update viral. If only they better tracking stats this great Twitter tool would be perfect.

bit.ly is my clear favorite out of the link shorteners I reviewed, they offer everything I looked for and more. The most important features I was concerned with were the ability to track links in real-time and in an accurate fashions. Real-time tracking in bit.ly is far superior to its competitors with the abilities to update your tracking every minute and giving you a screen shot example of your link (in fact that is the source of my screen shots above). It truly has updated real-time stats, I will be looking at my stat report chart after shortening/sending out a link and minute by minute will be able to see the amount of clicks I receive to my link(no refresh needed). It gets exciting and fun seeing how many clicks you receive and you can even find out what countries your link clicks are coming from. Twitting from the site was also another feature I really cared about as it is a time saver. The big bonus is the ability to add multiple accounts. Even though you cannot send your updates through all your Twitter accounts at once like Hoot Suite, you can change accounts quickly and bit.ly's link tracking is of the best out there. Based on the main features I was looking for in a URL/ link shortening service