Analysis of nearly 1.7 billion shortened URL links

Web of Trust (WOT) completed an analysis of nearly 1.7 billion shortened URL links and found that the URL shortening services are often used to drive traffic to suspicious websites.

The research found that 8.7 percent of websites reached via the TinyURL service, and 5.0 percent of websites reached via Bit.ly, receive poor ratings for ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘child protection’ – as measured by WOT’s millions of crowd-sourced reputation scores.