See the full link before you click
Paste a short link above. The first thing you see is the full address it opens, with the site's name in bold. Check that name matches who sent you the link.
Below it you see each hop on the way, any affiliate ID the link carries, and a clean copy with tracking removed.
Short links we expand
| Short link |
From |
bit.ly, tinyurl.com, ow.ly, buff.ly, rebrand.ly, cutt.ly, is.gd |
General link shorteners |
t.co, lnkd.in |
X and LinkedIn |
amzn.to, a.co, amzn.eu |
Amazon |
s.click.aliexpress.com, a.aliexpress.com |
AliExpress |
ebay.us |
eBay |
walmrt.us |
Walmart Creator |
geni.us |
Geniuslink. It can send people to a different store by country |
| Custom short domains |
Many brands run their own. We follow them the same way |
Some wrapped links carry the full address inside them. Google url?q=, Facebook l.php?u= and YouTube redirect?q= links are read straight from the text, without visiting them.
Short links that change by country or device
Some short links, such as geni.us, send people in different countries or on different devices to different pages. We expand the link from our server, so you see one of those destinations. A visitor elsewhere may land on another.
Checking a short link you do not trust
Before we visit a link, we look it up in Google Web Risk, a list of known malware and phishing sites. We also look up every address we decode from inside it.
If the link is listed, we do not visit it. The result says which list it is on, such as phishing or malware.
If it is not listed, the result reads "Not on known threat lists". The list only knows the links people have reported. New phishing links appear every day, so a link that is not listed can still be harmful.
We expand the link from our server, so checking it here does not open it on your device. We never show a link you paste as something you can click. The only exception is the final address of a link that is not on the threat list.
What to do with a suspicious link
- Do not open it, and do not enter a password or card details on the page it leads to.
- If the message claims to be from your bank, a shop or a delivery company, go to their site by typing the address yourself.
- Report phishing links to Google at
safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish.
- If you already entered a password, change it on the real site and turn on two-step sign-in.
Common questions
How do I expand a short URL?
Paste it in the box at the top of this page. We follow it and show the full address it opens, plus every hop on the way.
Can I see where a bit.ly link goes without opening it?
Yes. Paste it here and we follow it from our server. Bitly also shows its own preview page if you add a + to the end of the link.
Can you tell me if a short link is harmful?
We can tell you if it, or the address it opens, is on Google Web Risk's list of known malware and phishing sites. We do not visit a listed link. A link missing from the list may still be harmful, because the list only knows what has been reported.
Why does the full link look different in my browser?
Some short links send people to different pages by country or device. Sites can also add or remove parts of the address after the page opens.
Does expanding a link count as a click?
Yes. The short link service counts each visit, and our check is one visit. We reuse the result for an hour so the same link is not visited twice.
Is the short link an affiliate link?
It can be. Many affiliate links are shortened. When the expanded link carries an affiliate ID, we show it and the network or merchant it belongs to.
