🔗 URL Unshortener

Expand bit.ly, t.co, goo.gl, and any shortened URL. Trace full redirect chains, detect loops and HTTPS downgrades.

Store Quickstart

Start with the Quickstart template (3 demo shortened URLs). For bulk processing, use Bulk Resolve (1,000 URLs, concurrency 20).

Key Features

• 🔓 Expand all shorteners — Works with bit.ly, t.co, goo.gl, tinyurl, ow.ly, buff.ly, and more
• 🔗 Full redirect chain — Every hop logged with URL + status code
• 🔄 Loop detection — Identifies infinite redirect loops and cyclic redirects
• 🔒 HTTPS downgrade detection — Flags URLs where https redirects to http
• ⚡ Bulk processing — Up to 1,000 URLs per run with 1-20 concurrency
• 📊 Hop count stats — Total hops per URL for ad network / tracker analysis

Use Cases

Who	Why
Ad fraud analysts	Detect cloaking by tracing redirect chains in ad URLs
Security teams	Resolve phishing links without clicking to identify payloads
Social media analysts	Expand t.co links from X/Twitter datasets for attribution
SEO auditors	Verify outbound shortened links resolve to intended destinations
Journalism/OSINT	Investigate URL patterns in misinformation campaigns

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
urls	string[]	(required)	Shortened URLs to resolve (max 1000)
maxRedirects	integer	10	Max redirect hops (1-20)
concurrency	integer	10	Parallel requests (1-20)

Input Example

{
  "urls": ["https://bit.ly/3abcdef", "https://t.co/xyz", "https://goo.gl/abc123"],
  "maxRedirects": 10,
  "concurrency": 10
}

Output Example

{
  "originalUrl": "https://bit.ly/3abcdef",
  "chain": [
    {"url": "https://bit.ly/3abcdef", "statusCode": 301},
    {"url": "https://example.com/landing", "statusCode": 200}
  ],
  "finalUrl": "https://example.com/landing",
  "totalHops": 2,
  "hasLoop": false,
  "isHttpsDowngrade": false
}

FAQ

What if the short URL is dead?

The chain shows the final status code (e.g., 404). hasLoop will be false; finalUrl will be the last URL reached.

Can it handle JavaScript redirects?

No — this is HTTP-level only. JS-based redirects (meta refresh, window.location) require a browser.

Is bit.ly rate-limited?

bit.ly may rate-limit aggressive requests. Use concurrency ≤ 10 for safety on shortener-heavy batches.

Will this follow tracking parameters?

Yes. The full URL including UTM tags is preserved at each hop.

Related Actors

URL/Link Tools cluster — explore related Apify tools:

• 🔗 URL Health Checker — Bulk-check HTTP status codes, redirects, SSL validity, and response times for thousands of URLs.
• 🔗 Broken Link Checker — Crawl websites to find broken links, 404 errors, and dead URLs.
• 🏷️ Meta Tag Analyzer — Analyze meta tags, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, JSON-LD, and hreflang for any URL.
• 📚 Wayback Machine Checker — Check if URLs are archived on the Wayback Machine and find closest snapshots by date.

Cost

Pay Per Event:

• actor-start: $0.01 (flat fee per run)
• dataset-item: $0.002 per output item

Example: 1,000 items = $0.01 + (1,000 × $0.002) = $2.01

No subscription required — you only pay for what you use.