Are you familiar with bit.ly or other link-shortening services? If so, the odds that you’re on Twitter. Because link shortening services have really been popularized with the 140-character limit that Twitter posts allow. Rather than include an extraordinarily long site URL that takes up half your space, bit.ly instantly creates shortened redirects to your link.
But now, Twitter has created their own default URL shortener. Twitter’s t.co will also be providing the same kind of tracking metrics that bit.ly and ow.ly offer. So you can track exactly how many people are coming to your site from Twitter.
So, the question is, how will this affect bit.ly users? Perhaps they’re comfortable with their bit.ly account and like having all their analytics history with one company. But, bit.ly has announced that even if Twitter‘s automated t.co URL-shortening service shortens your bit.ly link, you won’t lose your bit.ly tracking information. The bit.ly link will still be wrapped within twitter’s link-wrapping service.
So, t.co changes nothing for bit.ly users, but will greatly help the average user stay under Twitter’s 140-character maximum.