3 ms·

This would be a truly wise move in the long run. If I read the article right there is no official announcement yet, is it?

jacquesm 17y ago
It looks like they're in contact but no deal has been reached, and it is implied that there are some sour grapes because of the blog post line quoted, but that's speculation only. I'm very curious how this will turn out. This was a very short lifecycle for a service, but in the long run this is to be expected for just about every website. Stuff gets created and it dies again. Url shorteners exist in the first place because of bad design in the websites that need to have their links shortened. Plenty of websites that I'm familiar with have overlong urls, some to the point of being ridiculous. Maybe sites should employ their own internal url shortening service, where 'http://somesite.com/shorturl http://somesite.com/shorturl gets mapped to the real url. That way the short urls will live as long as the site.
- seldo 17y ago
  Long URLs are not a design flaw -- or, at least, not a design flaw in the site itself. Pagerank calculations by Google and the other engines put a lot of weight on words that appear inside the URL, which is why all SEO advice says to put your blog post titles in the URL (Wordpress has this as an opt-in one-click setting). Long URLs are required by Google. If it stopped requiring them, we wouldn't need long URLs anymore, but personally I find them quite useful most of the time, since it's like a very easy preview of what you're about to click on.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    That's a good point, but long urls are not exactly 'required' by google. Giving weight to words in URLs was a mistake in my opinion, it lead to URL spam. Any kind of ranking system that uses criteria outside of the factor that is best classified as 'human appreciation' will lead to some form of spam.
- seldo 17y ago
  Oh, and re: the idea of internal URL shorteners, Google's suggestion for rel=canonical http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-y... is a way to allow those to exist without destroying your pagerank. However, I'm not seeing them too widely implemented yet.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - mseebach 17y ago
    I'd think a 301 Moved Permanently is more appropriate - and also how many URL shorteners work today.
michael_dorfman 17y ago
Wise move for whom? Bit.ly buying tr.im is good for the tr.im guys; I suppose bit.ly would get some good will, so it might make sense from their standpoint, depending upon the price. Bit.ly hosting existing tr.im links offers nothing to the tr.im folks; I'm not sure why tr.im would go for it, except to prove that they're mensches.
- mrduncan 17y ago
  Well, tr.im would possibly get out of some hosting costs since they've promised to keep everything up until December 31st. That said, I'll be surprised if it actually happens.
- onreact-com 17y ago
  Wise for bit.ly - It would mean more market share for bit.ly plus it would be a proof of reliance for short URLs. Plus inheriting a good brand has additional value. They could position tr.im for a different target market than bit.ly bit.ly as the comprehensive one, tr.im as the quick and easy one for instance. Even in the short it means a wave of good publicity like you see here.

jacquesm 17y ago

It looks like they're in contact but no deal has been reached, and it is implied that there are some sour grapes because of the blog post line quoted, but that's speculation only. I'm very curious how this will turn out. This was a very short lifecycle for a service, but in the long run this is to be expected for just about every website. Stuff gets created and it dies again. Url shorteners exist in the first place because of bad design in the websites that need to have their links shortened. Plenty of websites that I'm familiar with have overlong urls, some to the point of being ridiculous. Maybe sites should employ their own internal url shortening service, where 'http://somesite.com/shorturl http://somesite.com/shorturl gets mapped to the real url. That way the short urls will live as long as the site.

seldo 17y ago
Long URLs are not a design flaw -- or, at least, not a design flaw in the site itself. Pagerank calculations by Google and the other engines put a lot of weight on words that appear inside the URL, which is why all SEO advice says to put your blog post titles in the URL (Wordpress has this as an opt-in one-click setting). Long URLs are required by Google. If it stopped requiring them, we wouldn't need long URLs anymore, but personally I find them quite useful most of the time, since it's like a very easy preview of what you're about to click on.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  That's a good point, but long urls are not exactly 'required' by google. Giving weight to words in URLs was a mistake in my opinion, it lead to URL spam. Any kind of ranking system that uses criteria outside of the factor that is best classified as 'human appreciation' will lead to some form of spam.
seldo 17y ago
Oh, and re: the idea of internal URL shorteners, Google's suggestion for rel=canonical http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-y... is a way to allow those to exist without destroying your pagerank. However, I'm not seeing them too widely implemented yet.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- mseebach 17y ago
  I'd think a 301 Moved Permanently is more appropriate - and also how many URL shorteners work today.

michael_dorfman 17y ago

Wise move for whom? Bit.ly buying tr.im is good for the tr.im guys; I suppose bit.ly would get some good will, so it might make sense from their standpoint, depending upon the price. Bit.ly hosting existing tr.im links offers nothing to the tr.im folks; I'm not sure why tr.im would go for it, except to prove that they're mensches.

mrduncan 17y ago
Well, tr.im would possibly get out of some hosting costs since they've promised to keep everything up until December 31st. That said, I'll be surprised if it actually happens.
onreact-com 17y ago
Wise for bit.ly - It would mean more market share for bit.ly plus it would be a proof of reliance for short URLs. Plus inheriting a good brand has additional value. They could position tr.im for a different target market than bit.ly bit.ly as the comprehensive one, tr.im as the quick and easy one for instance. Even in the short it means a wave of good publicity like you see here.