Link shortening services has been around for quite a while, but their use has positively exploded since social networking services like Twitter and Facebook has become popular.

If you’re not familiar with what a link shortening service does, essentially they make a long link short…so if I’m using Twurl as my link shortening service, it will change my long link like this:

http://www.craftedweb.com/website-marketing/email-marketing-are-you-collecting-email-addressses-offline/

Into a shortened link like this:

http://twurl.nl/vd68h3

And person that clicks on the link will end up in the same place.

Links shortening services are great if you’re using a tool like Twitter where character count and space are at a premium. They’re also good if you have to send long links around in emails. Very long links often get broken up in emails so that when your recipient receives their email, the link is no longer usable. This is especially handy if you’re sending out newsletters that have links to your blog which have notoriously long links or links to your website.

So if link shorteners are so great, why did I title this post, “Why Link Shorteners Stink”? Well, it’s because as great as link shorteners are, they’re only great if they stick around. If the service you use to shorten your links suddenly decides to fold up shop or change things around then there goes your link. That’s a problem if you’ve emailed that link to someone or have that link in archives of your newsletters or someone runs across an old tweet of yours. Because when they click on that link…it goes to nowhere.

This has happened to me….recently. This week as a matter of fact.

I suddenly started getting emails from people who subscribed to my newsletter or requested one of my free ebooks complaining that download links and the links to resources and websites I’ve included aren’t working anymore. When I went to investigate, I found that SnipURL the service that I have been using to shorten links for my newsletters and emails has suddenly changed up their domain name…without warning…without a “Hey we’re changing things around and it might disable your links…so just a head up in case this matters to you” alert. So now all of those links I have in my emails are suddenly broken.

Sigh

So now, I’m chasing dead links and dealing with email from confused subscribers. And I’m temporarily switching my links over to a new service…not a quick task. I’m also seriously considering doing my own link shortening directly from my website so that something like this won’t happen again. Another benefit to doing this is that my links will get all of the link love from Goggle as opposed to it going to the linking service…which is great for SEO. Plus, my shortened links will reference my website domain instead of Owly or Bitly or whatever, which is always cool. They’ll look like this:

http://www.craftedweb.com/shortenedlink

Instead of

http://wkelk.li/shortenlink

So what can you do to avoid a scenario like this? Well, if you want to go the completely geeky route like I’m thinking about doing and running your shortened links through your own website, this post by Lifehacker can get you started. I realize that this route is probably way too geeky or time consuming for most of you, but if you or someone you know have the technical chops to do this or you want to just try it, it’s something to think about.

If you have a self-hosted Wordpress blog that runs on your own web server (not the kind on Wordpress.com), there’s a plugin that you can install called Twitter Friendly Links that allow you to automatically create shortened links to all of your blog posts. If you’re already using Twitter Tools to automatically tweet out your links when you write a new blog post, then Twitter Friendly Links will work well with it by automatically shortening and including the link to your blog post in your tweet. And as these links are based on the domain name of your blog…there’s little chance of experiencing an unexpected shutdown.

And the only other options you have for now is to not use a link shortener for critical links…say if you’re emailing a gallery a link to your website or online store. Actually you shouldn’t be doing that anyway, part of the value of having your own domain name is the branding. A shortened link by Owly or Twurl doesn’t look as impressive.

And finally…just to be very careful…and keep an eye on your shortened links.

I got a note from @sophistatiki on Twitter yesterday letting me know that a good many of the links in yesterday’s link roundup were going to the wrong place. I’ve fixed the links and they should all be going to where they’re supposed to now. So if you’ve missed yesterday’s link roundup or got frustrated because they weren’t going to the right place, you can visit the corrected post here. Enjoy and thanks for the heads up @sophistatiki!

Now, yesterday’s glitch happened because I broke one of my own rules for blogging and web design. I launched yesterday’s post without properly checking all of the links (there were a lot of links after all). Before you launch a post, or a new web page, or a newsletter that has links in it, take some time to click on all of the links and make sure that they are going where they’re supposed to. You might not have a reader like @sophistatiki who will take the time to let you know that something’s wrong until months later.

In addition, you might want to take a quick spin around your website on occasion to check for things like incorrect links, broken images, and features that don’t work properly. I wrote a post about the importance of doing periodic check ups on your website a while back ago and it has a list of things that you’ll want to check out. You can read the post here.

Wow! It’s hard to believe that we’re already a week into the new year. It seems like someone has pushed the fast forward button on life.

If you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to change the copyright dates on your website and/or blog. There’s nothing that says “moldy old website” more than a copyright date or content that dated a year or more old.

While you’re making that change to your website, it’s also a great time to do a regular maintenance check on your website to make sure that everything working as it should. I wrote a post a while back with a list of things that you should check on your website on a regular basis. January is typically a slow time for artists, so now would be a great time to run down that list for your website.

Even though hurricane season officially started on June 1, for some reason things don’t start rocking and rolling here in Virginia until September through to October. As I write this, wind and rain from Tropical Storm Hanna has already moved in and is going to make for a pretty unpleasant day.

Hopefully Hanna won’t cause us too much trouble, and thankfully Hurricane Gustav didn’t turn out to be the disaster we feared in the Gulf earlier this week. But hurricane season isn’t over until the end of November. And right behind Gustav and Hanna is Hurricane Ike and Josephine…it’s going to be a long three months.

Emergencies don’t have to be as large scale as a hurricane to cause you trouble in your life, your business, and your website…sometimes something as simple as a sudden illness, a computer crash, or problems with your web host can cut you off from your website. If you use your website to gather leads and to sell your work, long periods in which you can’t access your website or check your email means that orders can pile up, potential leads can get lost. Which is why it’s important to make every effort to stay connected in an emergency. Here are a couple tips that can help you:

Make preparations beforehand- If there is anything good about hurricanes, it’s the fact that you can see them coming and you can prepare for them. If you know that you may be disconnected from your website and your business for a period of time, prepare for it in advance. Post a notice on your website and/or blog explaining the situation. If you have an email list, notify your subscribers and customers beforehand. Then use your vacation settings on your email to automatically reply to people who are trying to contact you via email.

Keep people updated as much as possible- The thing that makes people anxious is when they don’t hear from you. If you can, create alternative ways to keep your customers updated on what’s going on. Using Twitter is a great way to do this. The Red Cross has been doing a great job of using Twitter and other web tools for disaster response. As long as you have access to a cell phone, you can send tweets via text message or through voices messages if you have a Jott account. Plus you can hook your Twitter account to your Facebook or Myspace account, your website or blog so you can post updates without having to access any of those sites.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter or Jott, you can check out my past posts on both:

• How to stay organized with Jott
• Blogging with Jott
• Adventures in Twittering
• Adventures in Twittering: Update
• An Artist’s Guide to Twitter
• Changes to the Jott Service

Designate an “in case of emergency” person- Some emergencies like a sudden illness or accident will leave you unable to contact your customers through your website, blog, or email. To prepare for events like this, you should appoint someone you trust as a sort of “in case of emergency” person. Your emergency person can be someone you trust, such as a family member, friend, or an assistant who can send out emails and notices and post to your website and/or blog on your behalf.

When you choose your emergency person, train them on how to access your blog, your website, and your email. If part of their duties includes keeping the ecommerce side of your website going, you’ll need to train them on how to fill orders and update your web store. Write these procedures down along with instructions, usernames, and passwords down so that your emergency person will have something to refer to. Be sure to keep this information in a safe place…and tell your emergency person where to find it.

Backup, backup, and backup some more- Do you back your website and blog up regularly? How about the rest of your important files like your customer lists, product inventory, and sales records. If you don’t you need to start now and continue to do so. Why? What would happen if your computer crashed? Would you be able to access your customer list? What if something happened to your web host or the service running your blog? Would you be able to switch to a new service or host if you don’t have a copy of your files ready to go?

Make it a regular practice to backup your website, blog, and computer files. Burn your files to a rewriteable CD or DVD or to a portable hard drive and store them in a safe place, preferably away from your studio or home office. You can also use an online backup service like Mozy, Carbonite, or iDrive, but you should also keep an offline backup on DVDs or on a hard drive in case you can’t access the web. You should also tell your emergency person where your backups are and how to access them.

So now it’s your turn! How do you keep in contact with your customers during emergencies? Leave a comment and let us know!

Last Friday, I posted the first video in my critique of my current jewelry website Mixed Media Designs.com.

Here’s the second video in the makeover series. In this video, I visit my blog and point out more improvements that must be made.

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