YouTube Latest to Launch URL Shortening Service

Last week, Google launched its own URL shortening service, Facebook began testing its own and bit.ly began offering private label URL shortening services to large publishers.

Now, Google-owned YouTube is getting in the URL shortening game. When you see links to YouTu.be – you’ll know they’re YouTube videos – and only YouTube videos.

You can access YouTube’s new URL shortening service via AutoShare or you can do it manually. Here’s how:

1. Take your URL, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4dgb8lxkRs
2. and replace the “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v”
3. with “https://youtu.be/”
4. You’ll have https://youtu.be/r4dgb8lxkRs