Metamark.net - Shorten long urls

These short URLs are especially handy when you use them for your Yahoo! Messenger status (people tend to use them when they have baby pictures they want their co-workers to see).

But why create yet-another short url service when there are already sites like tinyurl.com? Just because you can?

Have you figured out how to handle the spammer problem? For example, someone might create a Metamark URL called http://xrl.us/microsoft which really redirects you to the LindowsOS website...

I created yet another service primarily because I don't trust the others to stay around for a really long time. On the ones I tested I didn't like the generated URLs and the interstitial (makeashorterlink.com) or I found too many odd problems in my testing to have much confidence (tinyurl.com - their database schema seems to be messed up enough that you occasionally get a url that turns out to send you to another place than you thought).

I don't think the spam problem as you describe it is really a problem. If it becomes one I could just disable the option to specify your own name.

The real spammer problem would be if spammers use the service to redirect to their own site. But as they can't change the url after creating it in my system, I doubt that'll be a problem. If it does, I'll implement some detection of it to automagically disable the offending urls. (Probably via the statistics being generated from the clicks).

- ask

But what's about linkage and searchengines like Google - could be counterproductive.

Yes, you are right. I am not entierly sure how Google tracks the redirects. Having short urls in the first place is of course much better; Metamark is just a band-aid when they are not.

Normally complicated, dynamic URLs with many parameters will not be inserted in the Google Index. An advantage of the redirect service could be that the googlebot follows the redirect and inserts the content into the index. Though this way the content will be searchable, but the listed url would be the short URL and not the original source. In terms of link-popularity and pagerank this could lead to an advantage of the redirect service domain :)
But therefore you have to remove the in-between page. Otherwise we can not check whether my assumption is correct or not ;-)

We have this problem with long dynamic Urls at our Homepage,we change the long Urls with htaccess and modrewrite into static short Urls.

Pretty cool tool Bjorn.

I just clicked on a link in a slashdot comment and was generally impressed by how it works.

Here are a couple of suggestions/comments:

1. While the info page (pre-redirect for the first time) is really interesting to me, it might be confusing to non-techie people, who are the ones who would benefit from short URLs the most. Also to people who don't speak English. Maybe there should be an option to show/not-show that page prior to the first redirect.

2. Have you thought about the generated URL in some way reflecting the target URL's content? Obviously that would be a huge load on your server, but it would be interesting as an experiment.

3. As long as you have the nickname feature on, it would be possible to set a target URL that is itself a redirector, thereby securing a very short URL with which you could do whatever you want later. This could be a good or a bad thing of course. Example: http://xrl.us/poem goes to a redirector to a poem-mixing thingie right now, but I could send it somewhere else later.

4. If #3 above is a good thing, you could also pass arguments with the redirect, so that http://xrl.us/a7b?a=10&b=20 would go to http://www.somewhere.etc/meta/some_program.cgi?foo=bar&a=10&b=20

5. You could do the same thing with e-mail addresses. I think some people do something similar, but the shortness could be key here. Say, f@xrl.us -> frost@ergomal.com. This obviously has a lot of potential for abuse by spammers, but it's an interesting thought experiment.

That's it for now.

Cheers

-- frosty

Yep the Shorturls are very good for Google (Mod Rewrite).

But the Part with E-Mail ADresses i have never thought! Great Idea :)

Ho ho, lol.

http://xrl.us/microsoft really does link to lindows.com!

hehe cool :)

Normally complicated, dynamic URLs with many parameters will not be inserted in the Google Index. An advantage of the redirect service could be that the googlebot follows the redirect and inserts the content into the index. Though this way the content will be searchable, but the listed url would be the short URL and not the original source. In terms of link-popularity and pagerank this could lead to an advantage of the redirect service domain
But therefore you have to remove the in-between page. Otherwise we can not check whether my

Hi,

Like your site - I've also started a short URL service just recently. More of an experiment than anything else.

estou aqui para explicar o motivo da denúncia que a mim foi feita, que nada mais foi do que vingança, pois pouco antes de recebe-la eu havia denunciado um individuo que enviava e possuia obscenidades em seu profile

sem mais

It would be great if you can add email notification. For example, while shortening the URL, in that page, you could provide something like
"Turn Email Notification for" then you could have the following options:

1) NOTIFY ON FIRST CLICK
2) NOTIFY FOR EVERY FIVE CLICKS
3) NOTIFY FOR EVERY TEN CLICKS

etc.

Oh great! I often thought about creating such a prog, but never found the time. Good Work!

Great way for spammers and phishers to nail unsuspecting users.

How does this differ from tinyurl service?

Schöne Seite habt Ihr hier geschaffen

Hello,

in the last WebProjekt we had this problem as well with very long dynamic Urls. We solve the problem with the long Urls with htaccess and modrewrite into static Urls. It was very easy.

Thx

> I don't think the spam problem as you describe it is really a problem.
> If it becomes one I could just disable the option to specify your own
> name.

I can tell you that it's already a big problem (er ... not the kind of spam that was discussed above, but a different kind that proliferates because of xrl.us's missing features). I just noticed a marked increase of MyMiniCity spam on a forum using this URL shortening service. I came here to see if you have something like preview feature of Tiny URL (to enable it), and I see that you don't have that yet.

I can tell you this for now: Until xrl.us gets some sort of preview feature so I can avoid clicking on these spam links (it hurts me to see that I've helped someone who clutters web with deceptive links ... just by clicking on it), I am never clicking on a link that goes to xrl.us. In fact, I will probably have it blocked in my Privoxy setup so I don't accidentally go through another of xrl.us spam link.

Andrzej

> I don't think the spam problem as you describe it is really a problem.
> If it becomes one I could just disable the option to specify your own
> name.

I can tell you that it's already a big problem (er ... not the kind of spam that was discussed above, but a different kind that proliferates because of xrl.us's missing features). I just noticed a marked increase of MyMiniCity spam on a forum using this URL shortening service. I came here to see if you have something like preview feature of Tiny URL (to enable it), and I see that you don't have that yet.

I can tell you this for now: Until xrl.us gets some sort of preview feature so I can avoid clicking on these spam links (it hurts me to see that I've helped someone who clutters web with deceptive links ... just by clicking on it), I am never clicking on a link that goes to xrl.us. In fact, I will probably have it blocked in my Privoxy setup so I don't accidentally go through another of xrl.us spam link.

Andrzej

I'm having trouble dragging to my toolbar on firefox. Can you give me explicit directions, sorry! Do I drag it to the "Tools" title on my browser? Pls. don't laugh at my ignorance!!