Why TinyURL may not be such a good idea
Written by on December 31, 2007 – 8:00 am -TinyURL.com was started as a way to shorten extremely long Web addresses such as
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&mqma
p.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bI
gpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6
OzE5XVqcuc5zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvN
lygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrf
XNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC
9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%
252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP
into something like
http://tinyurl.com/6
that can be sent easily in an email or posted to a blog or forum.
Unfortunately, spammers soon discovered that using TinyURL disguises the actual location of the link. They can tell you it goes to the New York Times when it actually goes to an Eastern European site showcasing lovely girls with no clothes on. This could be disconcerting if you think you are checking a news story and your boss happens to walk by at that moment.
TinyURL has recently made available a Preview Feature which will allow you to stop on the TinyURL site and see where the link is going before being redirected to it. This requires you to enable cookies for TinyURL plus go to the TinyURL site and actively enable the feature. While Preview is a better idea than blind redirect, I personally don’t like the thought that TinyURL is keeping track of who I am, where I came from, and where I am visiting through their site.
If you run a website, do your readers a favor and use normal URLs for your links instead of trying to shorten them through TinyURL.
Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »
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By chuck on Dec 31, 2007 11:18 am | Reply
Thanks for the info on tinyurl. While the idea is great, you never get something for nothing. I was never sure of using the site, I figured you would be getting more spam.