New URL shortener

Just an FYI for those who haven't seen it yet...

Google has a shortener for long links that don't post well in ATS posts.

goo.gl...

All goo.gl URLs and click analytics are public and can be shared by anyone.

Now when I give a link to a way back machine archive it displays right

Statistically Improbable Phrases
www.s-anand.net...
www.amazon.com...

Wow, thanks so much Z. I usually use tinyurl, but I've BM'd it, (not that it's hard to remember!) and will try it out in the near future.

Google docs, for one, spits out this hugely inane URL. Now Google has it's own solution.

Kudos to you for sharing. SnF.

ETA: oops, no flag. Didn't see this was in BBQ before I posted.

The Short Version

URL shortening services can be convenient and help solve problems with long links, but they also come with their own concerns. Several are explained and examined here:

Wikipedia: URL Shortening

URL shortening services cost money to operate, which means donations that can eventually dry up, selling the statistics they gather from all those pass-throughs to marketing clients, or some other revenue-generating activity. Some services may also use tracking cookies installed when they redirect links, which can also be a concern.

Arguably Google's most valuable resource is their data on Internet traffic and user behavior patterns. In addition to using it to refine their own services, there are a lot of businesses out there that would pay big money to know what Google knows about who goes where, how many, when they go and why.

Hence I suspect Google's interest in providing a URL shortening service isn't just out of the goodness of their hearts, if you know what I mean.

I'm not knocking URL shorteners. There's a demand for them and they can be handy.

But it's still not a bad idea to know what's up with them.

Originally posted by Majic
I'm not knocking URL shorteners. There's a demand for them and they can be handy.
But it's still not a bad idea to know what's up with them.

hence the reason I posted their notice along with the link

But there IS a need The ATS LINK BUG

Tiny url has been banned as I understand on ATS so there are many links that will not display right in an ATS post. most particularly a link to an archived old page at Wayback Machine, a link that can be critical to document a post.

wayback.archive.org...*/www.space.com... tes+of+apparent+fractured+pack+ice+spotted+near+the+Mars+equator+%28left%29+compared+to+ice+in+the+Weddell+Sea%2C+Antarctica.+Credit%3A+Nature

Even when you use the word with embedded link method it will still not show right... like this:

www.space.com... p=Plates+of+apparent+fractured+pack+ice+spotted+near+the+Mars+equator+%28left%29+compared+to+ice+in+the+Weddell+Sea%2C+Antarctica.+Credit%3A+Nature" target="_blank" class="postlink">WA YBACK MACHINE LINKL

So without having a short url device I can't get past that nasty link bug

Also a google search... say for 'plasma lifeforms'

Pasted looks like this;

www.google.com...:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

In a word embed it looks like this;

Plasma Life Forms

This is the actual text of the link;

google.com/search?q=plasma+lifeforms%27&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

Now at least in those you can remove all the stuff (which is all the tracking stuff after the & sign)

&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

and just use this

www.google.com/search?q=plasma+lifeforms

Which works for google searches but not the wayback machine

www.google.com...

I don't find this bug at any other forum

Originally posted by zorgon
Even when you use the word with embedded link method it will still not show right... like this:

www.space.com... p=Plates+of+apparent+fractured+pack+ice+spotted+near+the+Mars+equator+%28left%29+compared+to+ice+in+the+Weddell+Sea%2C+Antarctica.+Credit%3A+Nature" target="_blank" class="postlink">WA YBACK MACHINE LINKL

You can remove the "http://" from the address of the site you want to see on the Wayback Machine, in this case, www.space.com instead of http‍://www.space.com, resulting in something like this:

WAYBACK MACHINE LINKL

Originally posted by Exuberant1

 

That link doesn't look legit.

I'm not clicking it.

nice thnx