Every once in a while, I see links that contain “tinyurl.something” and they link to all kinds of things. Is this some sort of redirect service that allows you to compact long urls or something? If so, what’s the point? Isn’t it more bother to go through a third party to get a shorter url than it is simply to copy and paste the long one?
You can see examples in this post:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4743819&postcount=2
Their first page explains it.
Seems pretty easy to understand although I have never felt the need because in the few instances where I run into really long URLs I just use HTML mail and embed the link there.
I’m on mailing lists where HTML email is not allowed, and people will use tiny URL for links that break apart. For instance, eBay links tend to break up after the ? in the URL, so people use tiny URL to make sure the whole link gets sent.
Some message boards don’t have provisions for posting anything other than the full url in a link. This can, with some browsers, cause a post to go beyond the edges of the screen. If the message board also gives only flat mode viewing, or if many users choose flat mode because of speed problems with dialup, then an entire thread can go wide, requiring horizontal scrolling for reading of each post in the thread. This can be a severe PITA.
[Administrator Hat ON]
We would rather no one use tinyurl, by the way, since it means no one has any idea what the link is to until they click it. Normally we can mouseover links and most of the time know whether something is a link to porn or goatse or spam or such, so we don’t actually have to go there.
[Administrator Hat OFF]
Another problem with tinyurl: I tried it for a while for various reasons. The problem that I had was that occasionally the taget url would expire or be bad for a while. When people asked me for a better link, I didn’t have a clue what I had sent them.
This is one of the annoying features of the various URL shortening services. There should be a way to find out where a link goes without clicking on it.
Yes, but HOW does it work?
I read the website and I still don’t get it.
So, could someone please explain? I believe that this is what the OP was asking about.
The front page provides a form which allows you to enter an arbitrary URL. The server generates a string of letters and numbers and then associates that string with your arbitrary URL. When someone visits the short URL, the server looks up the real URL in the database and redirects him there.
No, if it is a redirect, then I know how it works. It’s a very simple thing to implement, really, but I just wondered why bother. And I still don’t see a good reason. The cutoff URLs in e-mails and such can be handled other ways.
You enter a long url into the little window, and click the button, and it spits out a short url. The short url “replaces” the long one because it will take someone who uses it to the site represented by the longer url. Tinyurl stores the log url in a table, and assigns a shorter url to the target. That allows someone using the shorter url to access the target. Of course, if tinur’s server is down, then the link won’t work.
Here is an example:
Hope this helps.
If you put letters that spell obscene four letter words after http://www.tinyurl.com/ - the results can be rather startling.
Rather too startling to imagine they were just coinicidence.
I use it all the time. Sure, in a SDMB post, it’s easy to use the ‘url’ tag to make it shorter. But email is where it’s useful. Yes, I guess I could send email in HTML, but why? Tinyurl is available. I just got an email client about two months ago which can compose HTML messages, and I haven’t looked into using that capability yet, and I don’t particularly care to. My incoming HTML messages go into a special folder called “likely junk”.
Alright, the scrambled numbers make perfect sense. In the example, TinyUrl has, for example, www.tinyurl.com/6, and if they were all just one digit numbers, I had no idea how the thing worked. I was thinking it was some sort of cookie that could be read at eah URL for your specific computer, but not shared. Now that I realize that they have numbers and letters all going out six/seven spaces and expanding as needed, it makes sense.
Gracias.
Incedentaly, why all the backlash against TinyUrl? I know there are other ways to deal with the problem, but this seems to be a pretty ingenius little concept that will work pretty well for many problems with huge URL’s.
Sure, making big URLs into small ones is nice, if you like small things. But what if you want to make a small URL into a big one?
Use HugeURL. 
Mr2001, I think you have the wrong link there. Did you mean to post HugeURL?
Chronos, your link didn’t come out right so I tried TinyURL-ing it. 
Unfortunately, the link didn’t work - something about a timeout.
TinyURL is also good for storing a really long block of text (e.g. the list of interests in my profile) by linking to an “about:” address with a bunch of ASCII characters after it.
Japanese furniture?
PS2 game?
…
OMG!
:eek:
Well, just for shits and giggles, I decided to have tinyurl and hugeurl fight it out.
I got bored after a few iterations, but I did a network trace, and as I expected, when you click on this url the following happens:
(tinyurl kicks hugeurl’s ass in a googlefight, however)
galt, that was insane
I was just wondering what would happen if someone did this, when I saw your post. Though I must complain that a directory listing at the end of the rainbow is a bit disappointing. Next time, atleast make the wait worth it