Print, Twitter, Etc.
The university has its own short links service, similar to Bit.ly or tinyurl.com, that can be used with any utexas.edu address, like finearts.utexas.edu or landmarks.utexas.edu. It can also be used with Qualtrics forms. Use it to create a short address to use in printed materials, Twitter or other places where a shorter URL is advisable.
Other Marketing
You may decide that you need a short memorable domain name, sometimes called a Vanity Domain Name, that you want to purchase from a place like Network Solutions or GoDaddy and have it forwarded to a specific page on your website. The Web team doesn’t assist with this. You will need to manage the credentials and payment. We recommend you use Stache and share the information with more than one person on your team and do not schedule auto-payments.
Referral Traffic and Campaign Tracking
Shortened and vanity URLs may obscure where traffic came from in Google Analytics. In Google Analytics, visitors to your website who clicked on or use one of these links may appear as if they came directly to the site and not from clicking on or entering the link. You may be able to add parameters, see Google’s Campaign URL Builder but be aware that not all URL link shortening services are the same. Bit.ly charges a fee to use parameters within the shortened link. It’s possible you can add the parameters after the shortened link address but that may defeat the purpose of making it short in the first place. Keep in mind, that the short link or vanity URL service provider may have tracking data available, that you can use instead of Google Analytics.
