StumleUpon announced today that it has launched a new URL-shortening service called Su.pr. The twist, however, is that this one is designed to help content creators actually increase their traffic with it. According to StumbleUpon, this is the first such service that does this.
The growing popularity (which is seemingly dwindling after looking at some recent numbers) has made URL shortening services popular as well. Digg saw this a while back, and released the DiggBar, which not only serves as such a service, but also lends to a classic StumbleUpon-like functionality, allowing users to share and rate stories from the toolbar.
It is no surprise that StumbleUpon would choose to include a URL-shortener in its own portfolio. One knock against the DiggBar was that it was not getting content creators the traffic they were previously getting from Digg stories. It looks like StumbleUpon took note of this.
The company says that with Su.pr, publishers can drive traffic to their content and post across multiple platforms with a single click, all while preserving search ranking and branding.Also like the DiggBar, users can post content to Facebook and Twitter. The company lists the following as benefits to Su.pr:
– More traffic — Every Su.pr URL exposes content to StumbleUpon’s nearly 8 million users and allows publishers to showcase their site’s best content alongside each link.
– Better results in less time — Publishers can identify the optimal times to post (highest likely traffic) and schedule as many posts as they like, for whenever they want.
– One-click posting – With Su.pr, publishers can post to StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook with just one click. (More platforms to be added in the future).
– Real-time Analytics – Su.pr provides real-time reports on clicks and traffic, including the number of retweets for each post.
– Custom short URLs – Su.pr users have the option to have their own domain-name in the short URLs (i.e. mysite.com/a2b).
– Redirect friendly — Publishers can choose to create links that redirect traffic to their own site (301 redirect), preserving their search ranking.
“Su.pr makes it faster and easier to syndicate and measure your content, helping publishers increase their reach and efficiency,” said Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon CEO. “And from every Su.pr link, users can discover other great content from that publisher.”
Right now, Su.pr is in beta, and is only available on an invitation basis. They are letting a few people in each week to gather feedback and test the service. StumbleUpon says it will be ready for more people in a few days.
