Make it short.

1. Paste target URL: Enter the long URL you want to shorten. Must start with http:// or https://. Max 2048 chars.
2. Title (optional): Up to 120 chars, for identifying this short URL in your dashboard. Not publicly shown.
3. Click "Shorten now": You'll get a 6-character case-sensitive short URL (load.tw/av5F45). Each target URL produces one short code (per user if signed in, per anonymous bucket otherwise) — re-shortening returns the same code.
4. Copy & share: One-click copy. Perfect for IG bio, Threads, name cards, QR codes.
5. Analytics (signed-in): Dashboard → Short URLs → "📊 Traffic" for full analytics: daily clicks, country, device, top 10 referrers.
6. Delete (signed-in): Deletable anytime. Deleted URLs cannot be re-shortened (prevents blocked links from being recreated).

The origin of short URLs

The concept of short URLs first appeared in 2002, popularized by TinyURL. It truly exploded after Twitter launched in 2006 with its 140-character limit — a single Amazon product URL could eat up 200 characters, making it impossible to share in tweets. Services like bit.ly, ow.ly, goo.gl (now defunct), and TinyURL sprang up one after another. Although social media gradually relaxed character limits, short URLs survived because they solve more fundamental problems: aesthetics, memorability, analytics, revocability, and shareability.

What makes load.tw short URLs special?

load.tw short URLs use the format load.tw/av5F45 — 6 case-sensitive alphanumeric characters. Each character can be 0–9, A–Z, or a–z (62 possibilities), totaling 62⁶ = 56.8 billion combinations. How big is that? A crawler trying 1,000 codes per second would need 18,000 years to exhaust them all. With 8 billion people on Earth, each person gets 70 codes on average. You don't need to worry about your private short URL being guessed — the probability approaches zero.

Does case sensitivity matter?

Absolutely. Using only lowercase alphanumerics (36 characters), a 6-character code yields only 36⁶ ≈ 2.1 billion combinations. Case-sensitive codes with 56.8 billion are 27× more. What does that 27× gap mean in practice? Crawlers need 27× longer to hit a real code. When you want to share a link meant for specific people only, that extra security is well worth it — the trade-off is being careful about case when hand-copying, but you gain near-impossible enumeration attack resistance.

What can short URLs do?

• Social bio: Instagram / Threads / TikTok bios only allow one link — a short URL is the most compact choice
• Business cards / poster QR codes: A 6-char short URL generates a tiny QR code, recognizable even at 2 cm square
• Marketing tracking: load.tw automatically logs click counts, source countries, device types, and referrers for campaign analysis
• Verbal sharing: "load dot tw slash av5F45" — the shortest format you can read aloud to a friend, far easier than a 200-character Amazon URL
• Link revocation: If the target URL breaks, go to your dashboard to delete it. The short URL becomes 404 — no dead links left forever
• A/B testing: Create two short URLs for the same content, post them on different channels, and compare click rates

Real-time traffic monitoring

Every short URL on load.tw comes with a built-in real-time analytics dashboard, similar to Google Analytics but with key differences: no tracking code needed, no sampling errors, data is instant (no 24-hour delay), and fully respects visitor privacy. Log in, go to "My Dashboard" → click "📊 Traffic" next to any short URL.

What you'll see

• Real-time total clicks: Four overview cards at the top — total clicks, last 30 days, status (active / expired), creation date. Numbers are live-queried from DB — no 5-min delay, no data caching.
• 30-day daily click bar chart: Each bar = one day. Hover (desktop) or long-press (mobile) to see exact numbers. Instantly spot which day a campaign drove massive traffic. Powered by indexed SQL queries (< 20 ms even with millions of clicks).
• Country distribution (Top 15): Visitor country codes from Cloudflare's CF-IPCountry header. We only store 2-letter ISO codes (TW / HK / JP / US / …), never specific IPs. Common countries show flag emojis. Bar length = share percentage.
• Device type breakdown: Desktop 💻 / Mobile 📱 / Tablet 🔲 / Bot 🤖 / Unknown ❓. Helps identify if Bot traffic exceeds 10% — possible crawler activity.
• Referrer Top 10: Which sites send traffic — Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LINE, Google, Dcard, email (direct visits). See which marketing channel delivers the best ROI.

How it differs from traditional analytics

Most webmasters use Google Analytics — "embed a JS tracking snippet, rely on visitor browsers to ping GA." This has structural issues: (1) ad blockers/extensions cause data loss; (2) 12–24 hour data delay; (3) sends visitor fingerprints to Google; (4) exceeding free quota costs money; (5) the interface struggles with fine-grained "single short URL real-time traffic" questions.

load.tw uses server-side logging: visitor clicks short URL → our PHP writes a view_logs row before redirecting → analytics page SELECTs those rows instantly. No JS, no extensions can block it, no delay, no external service costs. Each short URL has independent analytics — no UTM params or GA filters needed.

How real-time is it?

Share a short URL, and the second your friend clicks it, it's recorded. Refresh the analytics page and you'll see +1. No magic — just MySQL INSERT INTO view_logs + next SELECT. Server-side analytics work this way worldwide, but few free products expose it as a default feature because it requires custom code.

Privacy protection

"Detailed analytics" and "user privacy" are not in conflict — you just have to do it right. load.tw's view_logs table records only these fields:

• short_id — which short URL was clicked
• created_at — click timestamp (to the second)
• country — 2-letter country code (TW / US / JP …)
• device — device type (desktop / mobile / tablet / bot)
• referer — source URL (truncated to 80 chars)

Not stored: IP addresses, full user agent strings, fingerprints, cookies, login status. Not shared with third parties: We never transfer visitor data to Google, Meta, Amazon, data brokers, or anyone else. Visitor privacy and sharer analytics can coexist — that's our position.

Data retention period

Raw view_logs are retained for 90 days, then automatically purged by cron (aggregate daily counters remain). This lets you review 3 months of traffic trends without letting the database grow unbounded. For longer-term data, we recommend periodically screenshotting your analytics page or copying the numbers elsewhere.

Short URL vs. multimedia share: which one?

These are two independent tools on load.tw — don't confuse them:

• Short URL (this page, /shorten): You already have a long URL and want to shorten it. E.g., compress https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0XXXXXXX?ref=abc&utm_source=xyz… into load.tw/av5F45. No file uploads — purely URL mapping.
• Multimedia upload (/upload): You have images / videos / audio to share but no existing URL. load.tw uploads them to the cloud and automatically generates a short URL. This is the core "image host / video host" function.

Can I change the target URL or extend the expiry?

From your dashboard you can delete short URLs you've created, or create a new one pointing to a different target. Currently, the short code itself (6-char code) cannot have its target changed — allowing that would mean a publicly shared link could silently swap content, breaking visitor trust. This is an intentional security design. If you need editable links, use multimedia upload instead, which allows changing passwords, expiry, and even image order.

Abuse policy

load.tw prohibits short URLs pointing to: phishing sites, malware downloads, CSAM, hate speech, and doxxing. Admins maintain a blocked domain list — known scam/phishing domains are rejected at creation. There's also a warning domain list (e.g., t.me / discord.gg / bit.ly — secondary redirect tools): creation is allowed, but visitors see a "You are leaving this site" interstitial before proceeding. See our Terms of Service and DMCA complaint form for details.