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Short URL Generator
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Convert long URLs into long-term valid short links with customizable short code length, perfect for sharing, bookmarking, and distribution.
This tool provides stable and reliable API access for fast integration.
When you share a product link in WeChat, only to find the link gets truncated and won't open when clicked—many people have experienced this. Short links serve to compress a lengthy URL (possibly 100-200+ characters) into a very short character sequence, such as just 6 letters or numbers, making the entire link clean, memorable, and resistant to truncation. With our tool, you simply paste the long URL into the "Long Link" input box, set your desired short code length, click generate, and the corresponding short link will instantly appear on the right side. Click copy and you're ready to use it.
Short links do not encrypt or hide the original URL; they are simply a mapping service. The server stores your long URL, assigns a unique short code, and when someone accesses the short link, the server finds the original URL by the short code and automatically redirects to it. Throughout this process, the original link's content remains completely unchanged—it's just given a shorter facade.
You might wonder how a long link becomes something like https://xxx/abc123 with a short code. The principle is actually quite simple. When you click the "Generate Short Link" button, the tool sends your long URL to the backend service, which uses a hash algorithm (for example, combining the long URL with the current timestamp) to generate a fixed-length string of random characters as the "unique short code" for that long URL. This short code, along with the original long URL, is stored in the database. Later, whenever someone accesses the short link, the server looks up the original long URL by the short code and performs a quick HTTP redirect.
In our tool, the "Short Code Length" input box controls how long the random character string will be. Enter 4 to generate a 4-character short code (e.g., x7Yz); enter 8 to generate an 8-character short code (e.g., a9Lm2QxP). The longer the code, the more unique combinations available, and the lower the probability of collision or being guessed.
The entire operation is very simple—you need just four steps to get a long-term valid short link:
If you want to change the length after generation, simply modify the number in the "Short Code Length" input box and click generate again. You'll get a completely new short link, and the original one remains usable.
Let's look at a specific example. Suppose you find a product on Taobao and want to share it with a friend, but the copied link looks like this:
https://www.example.com/item.htm?id=581234567890&spm=a1z09.2.0.0.1a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h&_u=o1abcdefgh
This link is over 120 characters long and easily gets truncated into two pieces when sent via WeChat, so your friend might only open half of it. Now let's use our tool:
https://s.xxx.cn/x7Yz9L (the short code part is 6 characters).Now the short link takes up just about 20 characters, far less than the original 120+ characters. You send it to your friend, and when they click it, they'll automatically redirect to that product page—the experience is identical to opening the long link directly. Even if this short link is embedded in a QR code, its shorter length makes the QR code pattern simpler and easier to scan.
In this example, choosing 6 for the short code length is a balanced choice—it's short enough to be memorable and easy to share verbally, yet provides hundreds of millions of possible combinations, so collisions with others' generated codes are basically nonexistent.
To give you a more intuitive understanding of how short code length affects the result, let's try the same long link with both 1-character and 9-character short codes.
Scenario 1: Ultra-short code (length 1)
Enter 1 in the "Short Code Length" input box to generate a short link like https://s.xxx.cn/a. This short link is just 17 characters—ultra-compact, perfect for SMS or when you need to minimize link length. However, a 1-character short code has at most 62 possible combinations (uppercase + lowercase letters + digits). As the volume of generated links grows, different long links can easily be assigned the same short code, causing old links to be overwritten. Therefore, ultra-short codes are only suitable for temporary, one-time sharing, and you must ensure you won't generate a second 1-character short code.
Scenario 2: Long code (length 9)
Enter 9 in the "Short Code Length" input box to generate a short link like https://s.xxx.cn/a9Lm2QxPz. A 9-character short code provides over 13 trillion possible combinations, making collisions virtually impossible and the code nearly impossible to guess. If you plan to print the short link on business cards or posters for long-term use, or publish it to public platforms, a 9-character length provides excellent uniqueness and security. The only trade-off is that the link is slightly longer, but it's still far shorter than the original long link in most scenarios.
You can freely choose a short code length between 1 and 9 based on your actual needs. Generally, 4-6 characters work well for everyday social media sharing, while 7-9 characters are better for long-term, public, large-scale campaigns.
The short links generated by our tool rely on a third-party short link service API at the backend. Although the service provider we selected has high stability in the industry and our short links have no expiration, we need to remind you of a few real-world boundary cases:
Do short links expire?
No. Short links generated by our tool are long-term valid with no expiration time. As long as the original long URL remains accessible and the backend short link service operates normally, short links can be used indefinitely.
What if the generated short link won't open?
First check whether the original long URL itself is still accessible. If the original link is fine, try pasting the short link into your browser address bar to see if it's being blocked by an in-app browser. If that doesn't work, the short link service might be experiencing temporary fluctuations—wait a few minutes and try again, or regenerate a new short link.
Can I customize the short code content?
Currently, this tool does not support custom short codes (such as specifying a particular word or number sequence). Short codes are randomly generated by the system, and you can only control the number of characters through the "Short Code Length" input box. If you need custom short codes, consider using other short link services that support custom aliases.
What short code length should I choose?
It depends on your use case and volume. For everyday sharing, 4-6 characters are sufficient to ensure the short link is compact while having enough uniqueness. If you need to generate many short links in bulk or want to print short links on materials long-term, we recommend 7-9 characters to avoid duplication and guessing.
Are short links safe? Can they be used for phishing?
Short links are merely redirect tools and do not provide security checks. We recommend only opening short links generated by yourself or from trusted sources. Handle short links from strangers cautiously, as their actual target addresses are hidden.
Is this tool paid?
This tool currently provides short link generation service for free, and you can use it freely. However, we do not rule out introducing certain limitations in the future due to operational cost adjustments, and we will announce such changes on the page in advance.
Now you can paste your own long link in the tool above, select a short code length, and try generating your first short link.