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

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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