What is Ask.io?

Ask.io is a service that shortens URLs such as web addresses. This is useful in many circumstances (see below) e.g. in email clients that break long URLs.

For example, you can turn

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=china&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=China&ei=D1M7S8SMBoqTkAWRvL2bCA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=19&ved=0CFQQ8gEwEg

into : -

http://ask.io/002

Our goal is to allow shortening URLs to the maximum extent technically possible.

Uses for Ask.io

Here are just a few of the many uses for Ask.io's URL shortening service:

• Shorten web addresses for emails, forum posts, blogs etc. which cannot handle long URLs and might wrap them, making them unclickable.
• Lower the character count when texting web addresses to a mobile phone.
• Hide the real URLs of affiliate links from visitors to your site.
• Obscure your real email address from bots which harvest them to spam (enter an address like mailto:myaddress@mymail.com). Note that this feature does appear to be browser dependant so such links may not work in every browser
• Circumvent protections on sites which don't allow direct links to a competitor's site (if you are violating a site's terms you do so at your own risk).
• Clean up bookmarks for social bookmarking sites or sites with low character limits like Twitter.

Certain uses of Ask.io are forbidden, for example use in unsolicited commercial email (SPAM).