5 ms·

To me at this point I question the wisdom of even using URL shorteners. They almost all get abused by spammers and malware, they end up getting blacklisted, an

To me at this point I question the wisdom of even using URL shorteners. They almost all get abused by spammers and malware, they end up getting blacklisted, and as a best practice they are generally advocated for end users not to click on them. In a Corp business environment I haven't found the pains that come with using them worth the shorter URL. What places are they still widely used outsider of social media?

flafla2 7y ago
They're useful when you need to get people (especially large groups) to type in a URL. For example, I use them when teaching classes to e.g. fill out attendance sheets because I can simply write the url on the board. I'd agree that if the method of delivery is a link, there is no valid reason to use a shortener.
mgoblu3 7y ago
We at least use one internally at my big corp. It's nice because instead of routing to some non-vanity URL that looks more like a raw Azure host, we can register x.company.com/whatever to redirect to it. Can only access the links and shortener from inside the firewall.
kbumsik 7y ago
AFAIK Microsoft use their own URL shortener all over the place including their blog, project, and docs https://aka.ms https://aka.ms . Instead of using random characters, they use a name that clearly shows what it is about for a URL, https://aka.ms/terminal-video https://aka.ms/terminal-video as an example. I think it is the best usage of a URL shortener so far. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange-Team-Blog/Navigating-Exchange-Content-Like-A-Pro-Using-Short-URLs/ba-p/603520 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange-Team-Blog/Na...
- Meph504 7y ago
  Yes, and it's a parade of randomly dead links, I really hope they stop using it soon. Or at least stop deadlinking their own content.
notfoss 7y ago
Many companies use shortened URLs in SMS messages.
- Meph504 7y ago
  This is probably the best answer I've seen to this, the others make valid points also, thanks for the response.
romwell 7y ago
>What places are they still widely used outsider of social media? Is that not a good enough reason to begin with? But really, URL shorteners are the direct result of: 1)Most websites not having human-readable URL's 2)Many places not allowing HTML-style links Both (1) and (2) apply to this forum; e.g.: news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21870064&goto=item%3Fid%3D21867994%2321870064 As a result, we have URL shorteners. They perform the function of <a href="">link text</a>, with the advantage of the users being able to type them by hand, if needs be. They are immensely useful as an internal tool: if you run one locally, URLs of the form http://link/useful-link-description http://link/useful-link-description will quickly become the norm.
- atoav 7y ago
  And I might add: They are useful for granular tracking (e.g. If you send a link to a resume and you want to make they have read it). if you have a long URL you want to turn into a QR-Code, using a URL shortener will decrease the complexity of the Code (=improve the readabilty), while allowing you to track how many people scanned it and on top of that you can change which site it is pointing to without redirects or reprints.
  - pkalinowski 7y ago
    Yep. I think most people don't realise what most end URLs used in shorteners look like. You can share http://example.com/vfdge34 or http://company.com/blog/2000/12/13/top-10-reasons-use-url-shorteners-today-you-wont-believe-number-7?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=another_stupid_recycled_post_campaign_for_social_media&utm_content=look-how-modern-we-are-with-url-shorteners&utm_term=buy_now
- vthriller 7y ago
  > Most websites not having human-readable URL's What problems human-readable URLs solve in the context of URL shortening and modern websites? Their benefit in the past was that on websites with clear hierarchy you could strip URL path or change a word, thus quickly navigating on a site without resorting to clunky menus or site maps, but modern web doesn't look like that, and "human-readable URLs" slightly changed their appearance over the time too. I find modern auto-generated URLs like, say, news.ycombinator.com/item/21867994-Kutt-a-modern-open-source-URL-shortener to be much inferior: 1. they're longer and much harder to type by hand (and I've seen websites where lowercasing or omission of a single letter past the id results in 404) 2. they don't work well when the author decides to change title (and even HN submission titles change a lot, often multiple times as a result of a long discussion). In fact, (1) is exactly the reason why one would consider using URL shortener today: it's so much easier to dictate and type in by hand!

flafla2 7y ago

They're useful when you need to get people (especially large groups) to type in a URL. For example, I use them when teaching classes to e.g. fill out attendance sheets because I can simply write the url on the board. I'd agree that if the method of delivery is a link, there is no valid reason to use a shortener.

mgoblu3 7y ago

We at least use one internally at my big corp. It's nice because instead of routing to some non-vanity URL that looks more like a raw Azure host, we can register x.company.com/whatever to redirect to it. Can only access the links and shortener from inside the firewall.

kbumsik 7y ago

AFAIK Microsoft use their own URL shortener all over the place including their blog, project, and docs https://aka.ms https://aka.ms . Instead of using random characters, they use a name that clearly shows what it is about for a URL, https://aka.ms/terminal-video https://aka.ms/terminal-video as an example. I think it is the best usage of a URL shortener so far. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange-Team-Blog/Navigating-Exchange-Content-Like-A-Pro-Using-Short-URLs/ba-p/603520 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange-Team-Blog/Na...

Meph504 7y ago
Yes, and it's a parade of randomly dead links, I really hope they stop using it soon. Or at least stop deadlinking their own content.

notfoss 7y ago

Many companies use shortened URLs in SMS messages.

Meph504 7y ago
This is probably the best answer I've seen to this, the others make valid points also, thanks for the response.

romwell 7y ago

>What places are they still widely used outsider of social media? Is that not a good enough reason to begin with? But really, URL shorteners are the direct result of: 1)Most websites not having human-readable URL's 2)Many places not allowing HTML-style links Both (1) and (2) apply to this forum; e.g.: news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21870064&goto=item%3Fid%3D21867994%2321870064 As a result, we have URL shorteners. They perform the function of <a href="">link text</a>, with the advantage of the users being able to type them by hand, if needs be. They are immensely useful as an internal tool: if you run one locally, URLs of the form http://link/useful-link-description http://link/useful-link-description will quickly become the norm.

atoav 7y ago
And I might add: They are useful for granular tracking (e.g. If you send a link to a resume and you want to make they have read it). if you have a long URL you want to turn into a QR-Code, using a URL shortener will decrease the complexity of the Code (=improve the readabilty), while allowing you to track how many people scanned it and on top of that you can change which site it is pointing to without redirects or reprints.
- pkalinowski 7y ago
  Yep. I think most people don't realise what most end URLs used in shorteners look like. You can share http://example.com/vfdge34 or http://company.com/blog/2000/12/13/top-10-reasons-use-url-shorteners-today-you-wont-believe-number-7?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=another_stupid_recycled_post_campaign_for_social_media&utm_content=look-how-modern-we-are-with-url-shorteners&utm_term=buy_now
vthriller 7y ago
> Most websites not having human-readable URL's What problems human-readable URLs solve in the context of URL shortening and modern websites? Their benefit in the past was that on websites with clear hierarchy you could strip URL path or change a word, thus quickly navigating on a site without resorting to clunky menus or site maps, but modern web doesn't look like that, and "human-readable URLs" slightly changed their appearance over the time too. I find modern auto-generated URLs like, say, news.ycombinator.com/item/21867994-Kutt-a-modern-open-source-URL-shortener to be much inferior: 1. they're longer and much harder to type by hand (and I've seen websites where lowercasing or omission of a single letter past the id results in 404) 2. they don't work well when the author decides to change title (and even HN submission titles change a lot, often multiple times as a result of a long discussion). In fact, (1) is exactly the reason why one would consider using URL shortener today: it's so much easier to dictate and type in by hand!