1&1 .co.uk domains are £2.99/yr, .eu/.com/.net/.org £8.99/yr. You get a wealth of features, including DNS Management, Masked URL forwarding, and Phone and e-mail support can be reached 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As the world's largest web host with an amazing infrastructure 1&1 are who Free Stuff Junction recommend for domain names and any other web hosting needs.
You can use Google's own free URL shortener (goo.gl) to make long links into short ones for social media postings, plain text emails, etc.
• bit.ly
"bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier. bit.ly can be accessed through our website, bookmarklets and a robust and open API. bit.ly is also integrated into several popular third-party tools".
• TinyURL
Offers an easy and quick to use, short url redirection service. Thanks to Sarah Benyon for this one.
Short URL have been offering free short URLs since 1999, in the form of you.ShortURL.com. The service has a number of great features such as URL Masking (hides your real URL in the background), detailed traffic reports (live/daily/monthly), link referrer reports (where your hits come from), path forwarding (you.shorturl.com/any/page.html), Sub.Sub.Domains (you2.you1.ShortURL.com), and mirror management (forward to multiple URLs).