With bit.ly specifically, add a "+" at the end of the url to see what it points to. It also shows you some stats like creation date and number of clicks over time.

https://bit.ly/19y8wyr+

I also didn't know about that, so thanks. But - how on Earth was I to know? How are all my non-tech friends to figure it out?

> But - how on Earth was I to know?

from a Don Norman design-of-everyday-things perspective the design is completely non-discoverable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action...

What does that matter? Once they've clicked they'll see the URL in the location bar

It's useful to know the domain of the link before you click because some people might not want to navigate to unknown sites at work, or at least don't want to navigate to certain sites at work (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, pornhub, etc, etc.)

It also works for goo.gl links. [0]

Also note that a ".info" suffix might sometimes be easier to type. [1][2]

Too bad most URL shorteners don't support them. :(

[0]: http://goo.gl/vulnz+

[1]: https://bitly.com/19y8wyr.info

[2]: http://goo.gl/vulnz.info

Fun fact: Google is shutting down their shortener.

https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/03/transitioning-goog...

This is an awesome thing I will never remember to use.

TIL. Thank you.

Once the link shortening service knows it's a scam they can redirect you to a "saved you from being scammed" page.

(although evidence of this happening in practice hasn't crossed my radar, but it's probably because I just don't click those links in the first place)

You don't need a link shortening service for that. The website and API can just start changing the URL it includes in the tweet if it determines the original URL is a scam.

They can redirect you anywhere. They can also rewrite anything in the URL, like add affiliate IDs or whatever. I'm sure some of them do that, because why not.