Let's face it - long links look annoying and sometimes even overwhelming. Everyone understands it - from corporate social media managers to community administrators to ordinary internet users. Social media posts are also character-limited, but what if you want to share a link your TV barely manages to fit on a screen? QR codes - a popular way to spread a link offline - also look like a mess if they hold too many characters, making them hard to scan. A shorter link would be highly beneficial. This is where services such as bit.ly and (long live) goo.gl come in handy. They take your link, do the magic on their side, give you a nice short link and even a bunch of extras like analytics and pre-generated QR code (but come on, who cares?). But there is a price to pay, and no, I'm not talking about what these link shorteners may try to sell you in these mere seconds you are on their site. There is a price much higher, paid not only by you, but the whole internet, kinda like when you throw the candy wrap onto soil instead of carrying it to trash bin.

Best before

For example, did you know that no link shortening service can handle infinite amount of links? The companies behind these services understand this, and while aforementioned Bitly doesn't set a definitive expiry date on your links, Google did when it announced goo.gl wind down. After August 25th, 2025, no goo.gl links will work anymore. This means that if a researcher used goo.gl in their paper but can no longer edit the paper for whatever reasons, the citation is gone. Your social media posts with goo.gl links will be affected in the same way. Hell, even depending on Bitly is inherently unsafe due to Bitly being an external service that can do whatever it wants with your short links. Not to mention control a link creator has over their own links. At any moment, they can point to a-whole-nother place in the internet than they used to and shortened link can be deleted. What if you saved a short link or took a photo of the QR code and when you decide to finally use it, you are met with "404 Not Found"? Frustrating, isn't it? Good luck searching in the Internet Archive.

You Won a Lottery!

Imagine this - you got message saying that "you won a lottery, click the link below to take your money". The link is shortened, so you cannot see where exactly it belongs unless you click it. I, personally, wouldn't trust such link and reported the message as spam. Some may take a trip to this link and, in most cases, give away all their personal data - from name to banking credentials - to phishers. If you scoffed and said "hah, this is elementary and obviously a scam!", then congratulations, you know a lot about the internet, but many don't. There are people in situations so desperate and dire that they will take the risk because of hope.

So, what can I do about this?

Actually, there are quite a lot of things you can do about this situation:

• Contribute short links to the Internet Archive (this way, they will last longer)
• Use as less short links as possible
• (if you run a blog or site or something like that) Host your own link shortener so you and only you decide when to take it down Yes, this is not so easy as just open Bitly and create your link there, but so is keeping a candy wrap with yourself.

Stay sharp, stay curious. Goodbye for now!