In short, how to get the original long URL from shorten URL.
You may want to expand the shortened URL to reveal more information of a particular link, before visiting it.
You want to preview it first.
You want to determine if a website contains malicious software or is a phishing site.
You may want to know it's page's title and description, so you can decide whether it is appropriate,safe or secure to click on it.
These days it is wise to ensure your safety and prevent unsuitable or undesirable content while surfing on the World Wide Web.
Some of these websites may harm your computer or attempt to steal your information.
Therefore you must check and analyze the website to make sure it is safe for you to browse.
How To Expand Shortened URL With Online Tools
Forget about using the complicated way of doing it, by using httpclient rubygem to get the headers of those URLs.
Or what they called URL shortener in python!
There are many easy-to-use online tools which you can help you to reveal the original source of a shortened URL together with useful details, which you need to know.
They can help you to retrieve the original URL from a shortened link, before clicking on it.
All these tools have been tried with more than 100 url shortening services and they all work with all of them.
Be they, tinyurl, bit.ly, goo.gl, is.gd, t.co, amzn.to, tinyurl.com, ow.ly, youtu.be and many others.
In other words, you can check if the original URL is on search engines, Twitter, and whether the hidden link is safe to click on.
You can also get info about a YouTube video to decide if you should watch it.
Some of these URL expanding software even provide very detailed information about these converted URL such as title, description, keywords and author of the page.
Free Expand Shorten URL Tools
I have gathered here a list of free online tools below to find out where a URL redirects.
You don't need to download or install any of these software onto your computer.
All the ten of them are extremely user-friendly.
Just paste the shortened URL into the box provided. Then click on the button next to it.
I have tested them out and they all work perfectly.
Here are ten shortened URL expanding tools:
1. CheckShortURL
http://www.checkshorturl.com/expand.php
2. GetLinkInfo
http://getlinkinfo.com/
3. ExpandURL
http://www.expandurl.net/
4. Link Expander
http://www.linkexpander.com
5. URL Expander
http://urlex.org/
6. Unshortener.It!
https://unshorten.it/
7. Unshorten.me
https://unshorten.me/
8. Lengthen Short URL
http://thor.johanpaul.net/lengthen
9. URL Uncover
https://www.anonboards.com/url-decrypter/
10. TrueURL.net
http://www.trueurl.net/