URL Expander

Q: Why does the expanded link have more than one step?

Many short links pass through the shortener, then an http to https hop, sometimes a tracking service or a second shortener, before the real page. Each hop is listed, so you see the whole path, not only the last address.

Paste a short link and see exactly where it goes — the full address, the page title and every stop on the way — without opening it.

What a URL expander does

A short link is a pointer. When you open bit.ly/abc, the shortener looks the code up and answers with a redirect to the real address. A URL expander makes that same request for you and reports the answer instead of following it in your browser, so you learn the destination without visiting it.

This one keeps going until it reaches a real page. That matters because the first answer is often not the last: a short link may lead to another short link, to an http address that upgrades itself to https, or through an ad or analytics service before the page you were promised.

How to expand a short link

Copy the link. On a phone, press and hold the link and choose Copy link; on a computer, right-click and choose Copy link address. Do not open it.
Paste it above and press Expand URL. You can paste a whole email or message; every link in it is picked out.
Read the arrow line. That is where the link really ends. The page title under it tells you what the page is about, and Details shows every step on the way.

Is this short link safe? What to look for

Expanding a link does not scan it for malware, but the real address usually says a lot. Be careful when you see:

A domain that imitates a brand — paypa1-secure.com, micros0ft-login.net or a well-known name followed by extra words. The part just before .com (or the other ending) is the one that counts.
A bare IP address such as http://203.0.113.7/login. Legitimate services almost never send you to one. The checker flags this.
An internationalised domain starting with xn--, which can display letters from other alphabets that look like Latin ones. The checker flags this too.
A drop from HTTPS to HTTP somewhere in the chain, which means the rest of the journey is unencrypted.
A download at the end, such as an .apk or .exe file, when you expected a web page.

If anything looks off, press Scan on VirusTotal on the result for a second opinion from dozens of malware scanners.

Short link services at a glance

Every shortener works by redirecting, which is why one expander covers them all. The details differ.

Shortener	What it answers with	Worth knowing
`bit.ly`	301 redirect	Also used behind many branded short domains. See the Bitly link checker.
`tinyurl.com`	301 redirect	Also offers custom aliases such as `tinyurl.com/your-name`. See the TinyURL expander.
`t.co`	A page with a meta refresh for browsers, a 301 for crawlers	X wraps every link in a post. The t.co expander pulls them out of a pasted post.
`youtu.be`, `amzn.to`	Redirect	Run by YouTube and Amazon for their own links.
Deleted or mistyped link	404 Not Found	There is nothing to expand.

A meta refresh, as used by t.co, is a redirect written into a web page rather than sent by the server. Some simple expanders only read server redirects and stop at that page; this one reads the page and keeps following.

Why expand links at all?

Phishing. Scam texts and emails hide their real address behind a short link. Expanding it shows the domain before it can show you a fake sign-in page.
Knowing what you will get. A link in a comment, a QR code or a chat may lead to a paywall, a download or a page in another language. The page title tells you first.
Clean sharing. Short links break when the service shuts down or the owner deletes them. The expanded address, with tracking tags removed by Copy clean link, is the one worth keeping.
Checking your own links. Marketers and site owners expand campaign links to confirm they still land on the right page.

Tracking tags

Expanded marketing links often end in a long tail of utm_source, fbclid and similar tags. They record where the click came from and are not needed to load the page. When the destination carries them, they are listed and the result offers the same address without them.

Questions

Is it safe to expand a link I do not trust?

Yes. Our server follows the link, not your browser, so the destination never loads on your device and none of its scripts run. You only see the addresses and status codes.

Can I expand several short links at once?

Paste them all into the box, even inside a sentence or an email, and every link found is expanded. For long lists, the bulk redirect checker takes up to 50 lines and exports to Excel.

Why does the expanded link have more than one step?

Many short links pass through the shortener, then an http to https hop, sometimes a tracking service or a second shortener, before the real page. Each hop is listed, so you see the whole path, not only the last address.

What does it mean if the result is 404?

The short link no longer points anywhere. The owner deleted it, the shortener removed it, or it was mistyped. There is no destination to reveal.

Does expanding a link count as a click?

The shortener sees a request from our server, so it may be counted as a visit in the link owner's statistics. It does not reveal anything about you.

Which shorteners does it support?

All of them. Expansion works by following the redirect the shortener sends, so bit.ly, TinyURL, t.co, ow.ly, rebrand.ly, is.gd, cutt.ly and branded short domains all work the same way.

Need more than the destination? The redirect checker compares what Chrome, an iPhone, Googlebot and Bingbot are each sent to, and the 301 redirect checker tells you whether a redirect is permanent.

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