URL Shorteners reminder for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

What's happening?

As we approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’ve noticed that non-proprietary URL shorteners are increasingly being utilized. Please keep in mind that these URL shorteners are not allowed, and usage will result in blocks to your messaging traffic. 

What do I need to know?

Both free and paid versions of URL shorteners are not allowed. Below is a non-comprehensive list of some commonly used disallowed shorteners:

• Bit.ly
• Rebrand.ly
• Tiny.URL
• Short.io
• Ow.ly
• t.ly
• t.co
• shorturl.at
• bc.vc
• budurl.com
• clicky.me
• goo.gl (Google Drive links are also disallowed)
• Is.gd
• lc.chat
• s2r.co
• soo.gd
• tiny.cc
• tinyurl.com

What do I need to do?

Although this may not make sense for every business, we’ve seen successful delivery using full URLs. 

If you are using a URL shortener, we strongly recommend using a proprietary one. The URL shortener should be unique to each business to make it clear to consumers what the content is and where they’re being directed to. It's also a best practice to include "https://" to signify the link is secure within a message. 

For more information, check out Messaging URL best practices. 

Questions? 

Please open a ticket with your Bandwidth Support Team or hit us up at (855) 864-7776!