Agreed. Furthermore, the shortened URLs typically point to the large, better named URLs anyway. For applications, like search engines, that index the web; they

Agreed. Furthermore, the shortened URLs typically point to the large, better named URLs anyway. For applications, like search engines, that index the web; they should take resources that respond with an HTTP 302 or 301 with a grain of salt and/or index the resource they redirect to. Frankly, I'm getting tired of the debates around how shortened URLs are bad.