Ask HN: Why Use an URL Shortener?

2 points

4 years ago

After reading about the `git.io` deprecation, I see that Github recommend using another URL shortener service.

But I'm wondering, why would you use such a service? I know Twitter and LinkedIn automatically shortens the URLs you post with a service they own that is completely integrated with their social network.

Twitter do this because the length of a tweet is limited. LinkedIn do this for tracking I guess?

But let's assume you're not Twitter or LinkedIn or any major social network. What are the pros to relying on such services?

The cons I see are:

  - hide the real website behind an URL
  - adds an extra redirection/DNS query
  - hard to remember URL based on a hash

Scientific papers referencing shortened URLs is pretty shocking to me for those reasons. But, I must just be missing the pros, right?

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