Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it

Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by joshstrange on Sunday February 19, 2023 @11:53AM (#34859277)

Ehh, there are legitimate use-cases for a shortening service. One example is SMS messages. We can complain about how antiquated SMS is all day long but it's still one of the best ways to reach people if you don't don't have an app or have a low install base. In SMS length still matters and so taking:

    https://mydomain.com/path/to/resource?maybe=with&some=query&params=included

down to:

    https://mydomain.com/s/X3s5321

Both makes a difference and hides ugly urls. I agree using a different domain is a danger if you let it lapse but if you use your main domain then I don't see an issue.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by leephillips on Sunday February 19, 2023 @11:58AM (#34859336)

If this is your own domain this is not really URL shortening, but an alternative, and, in your example, parallel URI scheme. And you could just replace your ugly URLs with the shorter versions.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by valenterry on Sunday February 19, 2023 @12:38PM (#34859800)

I think pretty much everyone would call that URL shortening though.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by JohnFen on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:47PM (#34860524)

I wouldn't, personally. That's just providing a shorter direct URL. A URL shortener is a lookup service, turning a fake URL into the actual one.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by valenterry on Sunday February 19, 2023 @02:27PM (#34860910)

How is providing a shorter URL not URL shortening? Just because it's not necessarily having to do a lookup?

Wikipedia says:

> URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page

That's what it is.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by JohnFen on Sunday February 19, 2023 @02:37PM (#34861009)

> Just because it's not necessarily having to do a lookup?

Yes. You aren't shortening a URL, you are serving a web page that has a short URL.

I realize this is pedantic, but the relevance is that we're talking about URL shortening services, which this is not using.

I don't mind short URLs much (although I greatly appreciate it if the URL gives me some hint of the content it's pointing at, even if that makes it longer). URL shortening, however, comes with additional problems that lead me to the opinion that they're unacceptable.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by joshstrange on Sunday February 19, 2023 @12:05PM (#34859451)

I guess it really depends on your definition of URL shortening and I'm happy to admit that maybe mine is the one that less used.

Shortening 1 = using a shorter/different domain with a shortened path that maps to a longer domain/path

Shortening 2 = using the same domain with a shortened path that maps to a longer path.

If #2 isn't considering "URL Shortening" then I guess I rest my case as I agree that nothing good comes from #1. Of course #2 is still a problem if you have long-lived urls and you don't maintain their integrity. The way we use them is for short-term one-time/short-term login links so it's even less of an issue, no one is bookmarking them/saving them and for sure they are in reference papers somewhere.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by JohnFen on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:44PM (#34860502)

I use SMS heavily and people often send me URLs. I would hate them being shortened ones there just as much as in any other context, for all the same reasons.

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Re:Never use a URL shortening service – even if you own it by Salgat on Sunday February 19, 2023 @03:16PM (#34861381)

Of course anything that's ephemeral doesn't apply, since it's going to quickly become a broken link anyways.

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