Link Shortener& URL Cleaner

A true short link, like hiyaly.com/Ab3dEf, needs a server. The short address is saved in a database, and every click passes through it on the way to the real page. A tool that runs only in your browser can't do that, so this one doesn't pretend to.

What it can do is remove everything a link doesn't need. Links copied from apps, ads and emails often carry a long tail of tracking tags. Taking them off can cut a link in half, and the page still opens the same way.

These tags are added for analytics and advertising, not to pick the page, so removing them is safe on almost every site:

• utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content: campaign tags for analytics tools.
• fbclid: added by Facebook and Instagram to links people tap.
• gclid, gbraid and wbraid: Google Ads click IDs.
• msclkid: Microsoft Advertising click IDs.
• igshid, igsh and si: share tags from Instagram, YouTube, Spotify and others.
• mc_cid and mc_eid: Mailchimp email tags.
• _hsenc, _hsmi and mkt_tok: HubSpot and Marketo email tags.

If the link is yours and you added the UTM tags on purpose, keep them. They're how your analytics knows a visit came from your newsletter or your bio.

If you copied the link from someone else's email or ad, remove them. Otherwise your visit, and everyone you share it with, gets counted toward their campaign.

Shorter links look more trustworthy in a caption, a comment or a text message, where people can read the whole address. A link ending in 200 characters of random letters looks like spam, even when it isn't.

Click IDs like fbclid and gclid also identify one specific tap on an ad or post. Share a link that still carries one, and other people's visits get counted as that original click.

A clean link is still as long as the page's address. For print, QR codes, podcasts or anywhere people type a link by hand, a short domain and a six-character code is far easier.

A short link can also count its clicks, and you can change where it points without changing the link, which helps when a sale ends or a page moves. Hiyaly's link shortener does both.