When you post correctly formatted links to your social networks, Ping.fm will take the link and automatically shorten it to shorten the overall length of your posted message.  Links shorter than 20 characters will not be shortened.

If you don't want a link shortened, there are two ways to prevent it:

• Prepending links with a * tells ping.fm not to shorten it. (ex: *http://ping.fm/)
• Disable link shortening in your default settings found here: http://ping.fm/settings/default/

If you have social bookmarking enabled but don't want a specific url to be bookmarked, prepend it with a "-" (ex: -http://ping.fm/)

Update: Since the addition of link analytics, the shortening process has changed a bit.  More information can be found here: Link Statistics

See Also: Bookmarking | Link Statistics