Everyone shortens URLs. I went the other direction.
The idea hit me while hovering over a suspicious bit.ly link — you know the feeling. You don’t know where it goes. You don’t trust it. You click it anyway because you’re brave and/or reckless. But what if the link had been longer? More path segments. More parameters. More words like “verified” and “enterprise” and “secure” baked right into the URL? Would you have trusted it more?
I would have. That’s the whole premise.
URLongener® is a website that takes a short URL and makes it significantly longer. It does not redirect anywhere. The output URL is not clickable in any meaningful sense. It looks extremely professional.
The Build
Zero dollars. One weekend. The concept went from thought to deployed product faster than I could talk myself out of it, which is the whole point.
The tool lives at bizbyct.com/urlongener. You paste in a URL. You get back a longer version of that URL. The expansion algorithm — and yes, I’m calling it that — appends trust signals, compliance indicators, enterprise path segments, and a full UTM parameter suite to whatever you put in.
Example:
Input (suspicious): https://bit.ly/3xK2mPq
Output (trustworthy): https://bizbyct.com/urlongener/redirect/enterprise/v2/destination/verified/secure/professional/trustworthy/link/go/3xK2mPq?utm_source=urlongener&utm_medium=expansion&utm_campaign=confidence&session=authentic&validated=true&expanded_by=URLongener_Professional_Enterprise_Grade_URL_Expansion_Platform_v2_dot_0
Does that URL go anywhere? No. Does it look like it was generated by a serious organization that thought carefully about it? Absolutely.
The Numbers (Full Transparency)
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Build time | One weekend |
| Total spend | $0 |
| Revenue | $0 |
| Total users | 1 (me) |
| URLs elongated | 47 |
| Avg length increase | ~8x |
| URLs that actually work | 0 |
| Pre-money valuation | $800,000 |
| Basis for valuation | It looks like it works |
The 47 elongations are all mine. I have used this tool 47 times despite it not functioning. I find this acceptable.
The Business Model (Theoretical)
There’s a freemium SaaS structure in place:
- Free — 10 elongations/month, standard trust signals
- Professional ($12/mo) — unlimited elongations, maximum confidence parameters, extended path segment library
- Enterprise (custom) — branded path segments, custom domain elongation, dedicated account manager (me)
Payment infrastructure does not exist. The product does not redirect. These are known issues.
The Verdict
URLongener generates longer URLs. What those URLs do is between you and your browser. I built it for nothing, it has earned nothing, and I have used it 47 times anyway. That tracks.
If you’d like a longer URL that goes nowhere, it’s live and free: bizbyct.com/urlongener
If you’d like to invest in this at an $800K pre-money valuation, the pitch deck is also live: bizbyct.com/pitch-urlongener
Current MRR: $0. Projected MRR: the math on this one is unclear.
URLongener® is a registered mark in CT’s notes app. Longer URLs are not proven to be more trustworthy. URLongener operates on the assumption that they are.