Are URL Shorteners Safer Now?
In my previous posts about short urls one of the primary pitfalls to using services such as bit.ly and TinyURL is the possibility that these companies can go out of business, and the short url’s that you have published will no longer work.
A coalition of url shortening services has been formed to try and help alleviate this possibility:
301Works.org arose as a working group of URL shortening services in response to concerns about the longevity of shortened URLs. As of October 2009, the Internet Archive agreed to manage 301Works.org to archive and redirect shortened URLs.
(see: http://www.301works.org/post/240736199/url-shorteners-working-with-internet-archive-for)
This is good news. The use of shorteners (and the growth of shortening services) has increased greatly with the growth of sites such as Twitter which can automatically convert your long url to use one of the shortening services. Now maybe your short urls are safe.
I still maintain that the best shortener is your own. It presents your site professionally and builds branding. In a business email shorter urls can help prevent a link from breaking and your domain url looks a lot more professional. And what if a shortening service does not join the movement? One more thing to check into.
Resources:
http://tech.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=story&sid=09/11/14/184256
http://www.301works.org/
Google it
http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners.html
tr.im shuts down
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
- Related posts on short url
- Sarah Palin, the 40 Year Old Virgin? — Christina Gleason – Founder …
- living-whole.com » Does Acai Berry work for weight loss?
- Generation 2.0 – Von Joerg Hochwald – hochwald.net
- Related posts on Twitter
- Get On the List: Graphic Designers that Use Twitter | NYC Graphic …
- Obama admits that he has never used Twitter | The Empire Chronicles
- Abrams Research Blog » Blog Archive » Twitter Lists: The New …
Tags: short url, Twitter
Categories:
Twitter, Web sites, short url
PC-Internet Tips
Thats a quite timely post i think. Because people are using twitter more than before and u know there is no option of leaving a full link there as it called micro blogging. One can use the Google URL shortener without any worries.
Steve Warriner
I hadn’t thought of the Google shortener, thanks.
I think some may not want to use it due to the concern of how much power Google has on the internet, such as the sidewiki (http://jedsweb.net/sidewiki-4-things-you-can-do/).
But one can certainly use it without concern that Google will close shop.
-JEDs