8 ms·

>What’s wrong with normal URLs? Length (in many contexts). Agree or disagree, but that answers your question for the "why" from what I have seen in my experien

>What’s wrong with normal URLs? Length (in many contexts). Agree or disagree, but that answers your question for the "why" from what I have seen in my experience. Marketing wants to link to something sexy like "te.st/dog" vs "news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32939407". Many sites may have longer url structures (esp nested structures) for various reasons that are not easy to remember or sexy to have on an ad, so when it's short it's easy to remember, and simple to type out for the user.

Spivak 4y ago
it's not really about it being sexy, it's about it being able to be typed in manually on a mobile keyboard by humans. the url editing experience on mobile browsers is terrible. like trying to write an essay through a keyhole.
- bluetidepro 4y ago
  That too, yup!
prmoustache 4y ago
Tim Berners-Lee invented hyperlinks so that URLs can be shortened to a single word, character or even image while keeping them visible to the user if need to by hovering over it. People using these kind of links shorterner are people using bad tools and bad UIs. This is that usage that needs to be corrected, and not by inventing things even more stupid.
- InitialBP 4y ago
  You can't put a hyperlink on a magazine, the tv, or the radio. There are definitely reasonable applications of shortened URLs that apply outside of the normal day-to-day web browsing and applications.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    I agree, we sell PDFs with the ability to be printed, all links are short links (on our own domain, though) so they aren’t lost/inaccessible when printed.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    qrcodes are superior for most printed usage. It never occured to me to type an url from a radio or TV message and I've never heard anyone spelling an url from a url shortener. All TV/radio broadcasters will rather tell you check for more information in "name of the show" on "domain of the TV/radio channel" or their social media feed. They all have a web presence anyway.
    - Volundr 4y ago
      > qrcodes are superior for most printed usage Disagree. I can't scan or type a QR code into my computer.
      - prmoustache 4y ago
        Usuallt you don't deal with printed code when you are in front of a computer and even then it is easy to scan the code with your phone and paste the link on your computer.
        Volundr 4y ago
        I don't? I do most of my reading at home where I have multiple computers in easy reach. I'm also not sure how I'm "easily" copy/pasting between my phone/computer. Is this an iOS/OS X thing? Not everyone is in that eco-system.
        jcynix 4y ago
        Quite a number of apps allow you to easily copy/paste between Android phone and computer: - BlitzMail, via email - Joplin, via desktop client - Nextcloud/Owncloud - Termux, e.g. via ssh, rsync, ... Various messenger apps with desktop clients or web interfaces, e.g. Element (matrix.org) or Threema.
- bluetidepro 4y ago
  I think you underestimate how much separation there sometimes is on large teams with the people who run/build the website, vs the marketers who are moving fast. I've seen terrible devs who will claim it takes DAYS to add a simple redirect of dog.com/X to your long marketing url (cutting out services like this), but the marketing team can't wait that long so services like this are much more async in many contexts, too.
  - solardev 4y ago
    100% this... I was our web dev working with marketing, and before I got there, short URLs/marketing links had to be manually created as new pages in Drupal sometimes, in a 301 redirect dashboard other times (what the hell), which meant submitting a ticket, waiting for it to get prioritized, etc., then making sure there were no conflicts anywhere. Switched it out with a cheap commercial short URL system with its own domain, and the marketers could login anytime and make their own URLs, see all the analytics, edit the destinations, etc. Everyone was much happier after that. It did indeed cut the wait from days to seconds, and plus they had real-time usage data after that.
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    Terrible, perhaps, but very smart.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- EGreg 4y ago
  Actually, link shorteners are just a symptom of the problem. The problem is the DNS system itself. It is the reason that your email address gets spammed, and the reason that you can DDOS websites, etc. DNS is a glorified search engine, and it is only really used for root urls like mydomain.tld . It's pretty much only good in two contexts: 1) for when people dictate a specific domain name verbally to someone, and even then, spelling errors can occur. 2) advertising a URL somewhere to a landing site. But you can just use a QR code that people can scan, or a link in a webpage. Everything else may as well be at non-human-readable domain names, in which case you can even use distributed hash tables instead of DNS. Perhaps one day browsers will allow plugins realize their own schemas, such as ipfs://hjkldfjhsdfkjgsdhfgsdf and the plugin would do the routing instead of DNS. Is that currently possible with standard browser extensions?
  - blowski 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure my email gets spammed because bad actors exist in the world. I'm sceptical any technical solution will protect against that.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      It takes both. If people couldn't send a message to your email just by knowing it, then you wouldn't get SPAM. Instead, you could be giving out capabilities, to send you email. And if one of them was abused, you'd simply turn it off, and only accounts who used it in the past could continue to send. New ones wouldn't be.
robin_reala 4y ago
Right, but your domain name is part of your marketing effort. And you don’t need to resort to a short URL service to get a branded URL. If you listen to any sponsored podcasts they have the job of reading out a sponsorship URL, and inevitably it’s something like {sponsoringCompany}.com/{podcastName}, which is totally understandable to people.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  It is maybe understandable but also too long for lots of content. You want it to be as short and memorable as possible for anything which has limited "screen" time. Which is basically everything, i.e. Radio broadcasts, video streams/adverts, Billboards you drive by, advertisements on websites etc.
MisterSandman 4y ago
I feel like custom URLs are better than random bit.ly. I can create a link like `company.com/summer23promo` that is easier to remember than `bit.ly/gsjsun618n` I think the paid version let's you do custom URLs but that is just a worse version of doing it yourself since a typo can lead to a completely random website.

Spivak 4y ago

it's not really about it being sexy, it's about it being able to be typed in manually on a mobile keyboard by humans. the url editing experience on mobile browsers is terrible. like trying to write an essay through a keyhole.

bluetidepro 4y ago
That too, yup!

prmoustache 4y ago

Tim Berners-Lee invented hyperlinks so that URLs can be shortened to a single word, character or even image while keeping them visible to the user if need to by hovering over it. People using these kind of links shorterner are people using bad tools and bad UIs. This is that usage that needs to be corrected, and not by inventing things even more stupid.

InitialBP 4y ago
You can't put a hyperlink on a magazine, the tv, or the radio. There are definitely reasonable applications of shortened URLs that apply outside of the normal day-to-day web browsing and applications.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  I agree, we sell PDFs with the ability to be printed, all links are short links (on our own domain, though) so they aren’t lost/inaccessible when printed.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  qrcodes are superior for most printed usage. It never occured to me to type an url from a radio or TV message and I've never heard anyone spelling an url from a url shortener. All TV/radio broadcasters will rather tell you check for more information in "name of the show" on "domain of the TV/radio channel" or their social media feed. They all have a web presence anyway.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    > qrcodes are superior for most printed usage Disagree. I can't scan or type a QR code into my computer.
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      Usuallt you don't deal with printed code when you are in front of a computer and even then it is easy to scan the code with your phone and paste the link on your computer.
      - Volundr 4y ago
        I don't? I do most of my reading at home where I have multiple computers in easy reach. I'm also not sure how I'm "easily" copy/pasting between my phone/computer. Is this an iOS/OS X thing? Not everyone is in that eco-system.
        jcynix 4y ago
        Quite a number of apps allow you to easily copy/paste between Android phone and computer: - BlitzMail, via email - Joplin, via desktop client - Nextcloud/Owncloud - Termux, e.g. via ssh, rsync, ... Various messenger apps with desktop clients or web interfaces, e.g. Element (matrix.org) or Threema.
bluetidepro 4y ago
I think you underestimate how much separation there sometimes is on large teams with the people who run/build the website, vs the marketers who are moving fast. I've seen terrible devs who will claim it takes DAYS to add a simple redirect of dog.com/X to your long marketing url (cutting out services like this), but the marketing team can't wait that long so services like this are much more async in many contexts, too.
- solardev 4y ago
  100% this... I was our web dev working with marketing, and before I got there, short URLs/marketing links had to be manually created as new pages in Drupal sometimes, in a 301 redirect dashboard other times (what the hell), which meant submitting a ticket, waiting for it to get prioritized, etc., then making sure there were no conflicts anywhere. Switched it out with a cheap commercial short URL system with its own domain, and the marketers could login anytime and make their own URLs, see all the analytics, edit the destinations, etc. Everyone was much happier after that. It did indeed cut the wait from days to seconds, and plus they had real-time usage data after that.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  Terrible, perhaps, but very smart.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 4y ago
Actually, link shorteners are just a symptom of the problem. The problem is the DNS system itself. It is the reason that your email address gets spammed, and the reason that you can DDOS websites, etc. DNS is a glorified search engine, and it is only really used for root urls like mydomain.tld . It's pretty much only good in two contexts: 1) for when people dictate a specific domain name verbally to someone, and even then, spelling errors can occur. 2) advertising a URL somewhere to a landing site. But you can just use a QR code that people can scan, or a link in a webpage. Everything else may as well be at non-human-readable domain names, in which case you can even use distributed hash tables instead of DNS. Perhaps one day browsers will allow plugins realize their own schemas, such as ipfs://hjkldfjhsdfkjgsdhfgsdf and the plugin would do the routing instead of DNS. Is that currently possible with standard browser extensions?
- blowski 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure my email gets spammed because bad actors exist in the world. I'm sceptical any technical solution will protect against that.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    It takes both. If people couldn't send a message to your email just by knowing it, then you wouldn't get SPAM. Instead, you could be giving out capabilities, to send you email. And if one of them was abused, you'd simply turn it off, and only accounts who used it in the past could continue to send. New ones wouldn't be.

robin_reala 4y ago

Right, but your domain name is part of your marketing effort. And you don’t need to resort to a short URL service to get a branded URL. If you listen to any sponsored podcasts they have the job of reading out a sponsorship URL, and inevitably it’s something like {sponsoringCompany}.com/{podcastName}, which is totally understandable to people.

411111111111111 4y ago
It is maybe understandable but also too long for lots of content. You want it to be as short and memorable as possible for anything which has limited "screen" time. Which is basically everything, i.e. Radio broadcasts, video streams/adverts, Billboards you drive by, advertisements on websites etc.

MisterSandman 4y ago

I feel like custom URLs are better than random bit.ly. I can create a link like `company.com/summer23promo` that is easier to remember than `bit.ly/gsjsun618n` I think the paid version let's you do custom URLs but that is just a worse version of doing it yourself since a typo can lead to a completely random website.