Chinese Internet portal NetEase.com has announced the launch of a new URL shortening service, 126.am.

According to the introduction on the official website of 126.am, NetEase's URL shortening service can help ordinary users shorten long URLs to short ones such as 126.am/ohXyK1. Compared with long URLs, the short ones are more widely used on social networks, microblogs, short messages, and emails, avoiding exceeding the character limit or wraps.

According to NetEase.com, this new service is not a specific product developed for its own microblog product; however, the possibility of using it on its microblog cannot be excluded.

In regards to the functions of this new service, NetEase.com said it can record the visitors' information for each short URL and it supports the review of various statistics, including pageviews, user views, visitor distribution, and access routes. In addition, registered users can create their custom short URLs and add notes to them.

NetEase.com also said the company will open the API of 126.am, which can be easily called by developers.