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Shortest URL shortener: the arithmetic, with our own losses
Two well-known hosts are shorter than gc.mw and one ties. Here is the full character count, why the code matters more than the host, and where length actually changes an outcome.
By Wasim Idrishi · Updated · 3 min read
Search for the shortest URL shortener and you get a list of services all claiming to be it. The claim is checkable in about ten seconds, so here is the check, including the two services that beat us.
| Host | Service | Characters | With the slash | Registry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| t.ly | T.LY | 4 | 5 | .ly, Libya |
| v.gd | v.gd | 4 | 5 | .gd, Grenada |
| gc.mw | gc.mw | 5 | 6 | .mw, Malawi |
| is.gd | is.gd | 5 | 6 | .gd, Grenada |
| bit.ly | Bitly | 6 | 7 | .ly, Libya |
| cutt.ly | Cutt.ly | 7 | 8 | .ly, Libya |
| rebrand.ly | Rebrandly | 10 | 11 | .ly, Libya |
| tinyurl.com | TinyURL | 11 | 12 | .com |
The host is only half the number
A link is the host, a slash, and a code. Arguing about hosts alone is how a service with a four-character domain and an eight-character code gets described as shorter than one with a five-character domain and a four-character code. It is not.
| Link | Host | Slash | Code | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paid plan | 5 | 1 | 4 | 10 |
| Free account | 5 | 1 | 5 | 11 |
| No account | 5 | 1 | 5 | 11 |
The code alphabet is base58: 58 characters with no zero, no capital O, no capital I and no lowercase L, because those are the four characters people misread when they copy a code off a screen or a printed page. Dropping them costs a fraction of a character of entropy and removes an entire class of support ticket.
Why the code grows
Codes get longer as the space fills. A 4-character base58 code has about eleven million values, and issuing random codes into a space that is already crowded means retrying a lot of collisions. The length steps up at 40 percent occupancy, so a code today is 4 characters and a code in some distant future is 5. That is a deliberate ceiling rather than a promise that nothing will ever change.
Where two characters change an outcome
Length is not a virtue in itself. Three places where it is:
- SMS. One message holds 160 characters in the GSM 7-bit alphabet and 70 in UCS-2. If your language is not covered by the 7-bit alphabet, a 10-character link is a seventh of the whole message. The country pages work out which limit applies where you are.
- QR codes. Fewer characters means fewer modules, which means bigger squares at the same printed size. A code that reads reliably from two metres and one that does not can be the same piece of paper with a shorter link on it.
- Character-limited fields. Bio fields, ad copy, package labels, radio reads. Anywhere a person has to say the link out loud, four characters beats seven.
Everywhere else, in an email, in a chat message, in a document, nobody is counting and neither should you.
The honest ranking
If your only criterion is host length, v.gd wins at four characters. It is a good service and it has been running for years. What it does not do is let you change a destination after the fact, and that is usually the thing you actually needed.
Our claim is narrower and checkable: five characters of host, four characters of code, no expiry on a paid plan, an editable destination and analytics that count the click. Ten characters, end to end.
Next: best URL shortener for the questions beyond length, and short URL builder if you want to build the link rather than read about it.
Questions people ask
What is the shortest URL shortener?
By host alone, v.gd and t.ly are four characters and are shorter than gc.mw at five. By whole link, what matters is host plus slash plus code, and a GC.MW paid link is 10 characters because the code is 4. Compare finished links, not domains.
Why not just buy a two-letter domain?
Two-letter names under most registries are either reserved or priced in the tens of thousands. The reason gc.mw exists at five characters is that .mw is a small registry with names still available, not that we found a trick nobody else knows.
Does link length affect SEO?
Not directly. A redirect passes through to the destination and the destination is what ranks. Length matters for character budgets and for QR density, which are practical constraints, not ranking factors.
How short can a GC.MW code be?
Random codes are 4 characters on a paid plan and 5 on the free tier, from a 58-character alphabet with no zero, capital O, capital I or lowercase L. Custom aliases start at 4 characters. Shorter codes than that are sold individually because there are only so many of them.