Talk:URL shortening

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List of URL redirection services was nominated for deletion. The debate was closed on 01 May 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into URL redirection. The page is now a redirect to here (see below). For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

All merged content was deleted on May 27, 2009; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=URL_redirection&diff=292671572&oldid=292650214; Most of the information that was on List of URL redirection services now is on URL shortening, and was taken from TinyURL; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TinyURL&diff=296284882&oldid=296284139; consequently List of URL redirection services now redirects here

First was not TinyURL

Although this page asserts that "The first and most notable URL shortening service is TinyURL, launched in 2002.", it's not entirely true. It may be the most notable, but it certainly wasn't the first if it launched in 2002. I have an email from 2001:

Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 12:04:07 -0400
Message-Id: <200107101604.f6AG47q13115@bn2b.bn2b.com>
From: Giles Turnbull <giles@...>
To: matt@...
Subject: gorjuss [July 10]

Here's a really special gorjuss announcement. But there's a story behind it.

You might remember, many times in the past, that I posted links in gorjuss
that were way too long to make any sense to a mail client. Links like this:

http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=80838120010529173517&prodID=15635

Or this one, which is even worse:

http://people.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3MWYZMOOC&live=true&tagid=ZZZO3JBTM0C&useoverridetemplate=ZZZY28CVM0C

Now when that appears in most people's mail readers (including mine) links
like these break at the 70th char or so and get continued on the next line.
The link is too long for the mail reader to display it as something clickable,
so it gets broken, and the whole point of passing links on to people via
plain-text email gets mangled up.

As the owner of a mailing list that does just that (this very one, in fact) I
frequently got annoyed when I found something gorjuss but couldn't post it
because the URL was just too darned long.

Of course I *could* make a re-direct page for each long link. I used to do that,
in fact, every now and again. But wouldn't it be nice if there was an *easier*
way of doing it than typing the HTML and FTPing it to the server?

So I had an idea: a site that makes shorter links for me, instantly and on the
fly? Hey, not just for me - for *anybody*! Wouldn't that be ace? I mentioned this
to my friends and one of them, the beyond-superlatives and very wonderful
Matthew Hunt, agreed to write the code to make such a site happen.

So here it is. It's a Useful Production (*branding*, baby!). It's utterly, utterly
gorjuss. And it's called Make A Shorter Link.

http://make a shorter link.com/

So, for example. That Palmgear URL above can be reached by clicking on:

http://make a shorter link.com/index.php?U2205200

[...]

The URL has been broken up above as Wikipedia seem to have seen fit to blacklist it. No doubt they have their reasons.

Also see: http://www.metafilter.com/8916/

So there you have it. In the end TinyURL took over all of the makeashorterlink redirections. Trefynwy (talk) 08:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of providers

The reference to mashable's provider listing is pretty outdated - here's a updated [list of url shorteners] which is also beeing maintained (but remarks in german though). would it match the weblink criteria? Hjacob (talk) 12:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recent promotional addition to the example list

For eight days now, anonymous or new users have tried to insert mentions of a certain new URL shortening service into this Wikipedia article. The promotional intent is obvious from this edit (Oct 21st):

On October 10th, 2009 a new URL shortening service opened up called dalt.in. It's basic, friendly, and simple interface is what has caught the eye of many users looking for a reliable site to shorten URLs. Although the hits-link history is still in beta, you can still request real-time updates by email. Results come within a short amount of time. Another feature in beta is the sites creative "Quick Share" area, where they will take the links to online sites and other applications for you! http://dalt.in is a great site for anyone looking for simplicity, and a few links to shorten!

Wikipedia is not for advertising and the list of example should be restricted to a few notable example (see also Wikipedia:Notability (web)). Some other entries in the list have similar problems. Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So - unless anyone has a decent reason not to then over the next month I'm going to ask for the redirect from queries for 'bit.ly' to be broken, and will write a page for bit.ly ... unless I just haven't been looking the right way for one? Nath 18:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Festrilmongrit (talk • contribs)

History

I don't see a need to emphasize that bit.ly is "Libyan" since this is not the case with practically every other URL shortening domain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanzoneja (talk • contribs) 05:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I have done a cleanup. If you feel it's necessary to add such details, please edit the article for bit.ly and add the details there. --Hm2k (talk) 09:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Custom URL Shortening Software

I think it would be useful to add a section to this page on custom URL shortening software, for instance http://yourls.org. --Paul Thompson (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tweak.tk

In May 2009 .tk, which previously was used to generate memorable domains via URL redirection, launched tweak.tk,[5] which generates very short URLs such as http://mxtux.tk/ (which redirects to Wikipedia)[citation needed]

There are several problems with the above. The press release at [1] is dated April 2009 and not May. The .tk service (home page is http://dot.tk/ ) is still offering domain and URL redirection, so "previously" is not accurate. The "citation needed" is probably requesting a better citation for the entire section rather than for the self-obvious redirect to Wikipedia; the above press release is minimally better than the current Twitter citation. I'm not going to edit the section myself because after seeing it, I registered a short domain and I might have a conflict. -- SEWilco (talk) 21:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NanoURL .TO

The description of "URL shortener TO./ NanoURL" probably needs some work. I can't find info on that service and someone seems to have registered http://www.to/ now, so the old links to there are not useful. -- SEWilco (talk) 21:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mail shortening

I can find very little mention of this term online, and it seems to be well covered here. I suggest a merge from Mail shortening to this article. Top Jim (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it covered in the current version of this article, and from the description of the functionality it would seem more pertinent to address munging. But in any case, before mentioning the term in either article and redirecting the entry there, reliable sources should be cited to show that "mail shortening" is an established, widely used term. Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, went ahead and merged before I saw this reply. Good point. I'll re-word the merged section, since I can't find any mention of the term in WP:Reliable sources. Top Jim (talk) 12:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bad links

The link "Comparison of URL Shortening services SearchEngineLand, April 2009" leads to a very shady page! Most of the "services" analyzed by that page are dead or have been taken over by hungry marketers. Someone please review this link! This —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.114.31.93 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two goo.gl links in description?

Why would the intro paragraph have two goo.gl short links to this page? Why not just one, or with the second being a bit.ly or tinyurl link? Seems puzzling. --X883 (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was added by in this revision to "show that several short urls can lead to the same page." It has been removed as of this revision. I thought about re-adding the second link, but it seems unnecessary. One link each on multiple services shows the same thing as two links on one service. Perhaps a second example from a different URL could be used, like you suggested. 122.106.154.228 (talk) 07:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]