Url Shortening Discussion

Newbies to the web probably do not realize that when an URL is shortened it requires more time to be resolved by the Internet’s DNS system. It require a lookup, a database save, and is primarily run by sometimes unreliable, PHP, and mySQL. There are often times that an url must be shortened for posts in blogs, Twitter, email etc…

Are the proponents of url shortening considering that many people will not click a link if they aren’t sure exactly where that link will take them? Or is that part of the beauty of url shortening? It remains to be seen, but one things for sure, and that’s url shortening is here to stay.

It seems it adds an unnecessary third layer and third party to the whole click through process. Of course that may not be a bad thing, but it depends on what side of the argument you approach it from. It is perhaps best to understand that nothing in life is truly free, so it makes you wonder where all these shortened urls will resolve to one day? I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but can it happen? YES IT CAN.

There are tons of url shortening services popping up, with these services offering scripts, plug ins, and other tools for shortening urls. There are also FireFox extensions which will replace these shortened urls inline within the page. (Like GreaseMonkey) My advice is to not shorten your urls unless you have to. But then I can be a little paranoid! There’s nothing better than a carefully constructed URL, and surfers can at a glance tell where they will be headed when clicking on the link. Not so with links produced by popular url shortening services. It’s not surprising that a good many of shortened urls produced by link shortening sites are SPAM pure and simple.

Of note: From the tr.im site, “And finally, Twitter has all but sapped us of any last energy to double-down and develop tr.im further. What is the point? With bit.ly the Twitter default, and with us having no inside connection to Twitter, tr.im will lose over the the long-run no matter how good it may or may not be at this moment, or in the future.”

In my opinion, Twitter should have it’s very own and Twitter banded shortening service, tied directly into twitter, thereby reducing some of the network oeverhead asscoiated with url shortening. Can you say, “shortening” three times quickly? No I’m not talking about Crisco… Yeah you probably can. Good for you.

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