How Short URL services work

Short URL services are not magic. They are certainly real. They are here to stay. So you’d might as well learn more about the service. Short URLs are very appealing because they can reduce very long URLs into something that can be shared on social networks, through sms’s, through chat services and be posted on websites conveniently.

Short URL services redirect people to the target web page. Short URLs don’t show up in your browsing history. The target website sees the traffic as coming from a social networking site or from the website the link was posted on. Short URLs cannot be replaced with IP addresses. That argument cannot be made for the purpose to be served. Especially because that solution is not magical.

Short URLs work because many people use social networks, public fora, chat services and sms’s to share web pages for short URL services to become viable. Many social networks, chat services, and telephony services are adopting and endorsing such technologies. In fact, directly and indirectly they are driving their growth.

Short URLs can be made to have “vanity”. Vanity URLs are simply URLs the extension of which was chosen by you. Vanity URLs are hard to find these days as most have been picked up already. A vanity URL once picked up will stay with the web page address for a very long time. Short URL services claim their bindings do not expire. That means as long as they are in business they will keep their bindings hosted.

As soon as one clicks on a short URL a request is sent to the short URL service servers. These servers have the mapping for the original web page link address. The service then issues a redirect (HTTP status code 301/302 redirect). Some even use a HTTP status code 307 redirect. This redirect leads the user from the source, say, a social site to the destination i.e the final website. The short URL service does not show up in the visited pages/ history section.

HTTP status code 302 redirect is often considered more convenient to use for redirection than 301. Both redirect clients to another page. But HTTP status code 301 redirect is complex and permanent. HTTP status code 302 redirect is simple and temporary. Search engines treat the two very differently. When a 301 redirect is used search engines stop indexing the older link. Many webmasters are still unaware of the difference and still choose a 302 when they really mean 301. HTTP status code 302 redirect links do not transfer the page rank of the older website.

With a HTTP status code 302 redirect the older link stays in the search engine bot cache. When many millions of web page addresses are being linked to short URLs this needs to be considered. There are no files used in this operation. Files would be inconvenient. They would consume lots of storage space. The reason is the same.