I recently encountered this message while editing an answer on Gardening:
This problem with shortened URLs is interesting but over my head. Sorry.
- Is this 'ban' new?
- How can I undo a shortened URL?
- How did I get a shortened URL?
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Sign up to join this communityI recently encountered this message while editing an answer on Gardening:
This problem with shortened URLs is interesting but over my head. Sorry.
The ban is a few months old and covers 5 of the most popular / most-abused URL shortening services.
A shortened URL is simply URL - a website address - that is designed to be as short as possible, which when used redirects to a longer "canonical" address. There are services dedicated to generating short URLs for arbitrary addresses; these services are used when posting long URLs in places that only allow limited amounts of text, such as Twitter. Due to the popularity of such services, many sites generate short URLs by default - for example, Stack Exchange sites use a shorter URL format when using the "share" tool on posts.
Post the URL it redirects to.
For example, if the shortened URL you were going to post was https://goo.gl/photos/3NXJj5RyHJSBe1517
, you'd just load that page and copy the resulting URL out of your browser's address bar. Then link to that instead of the shortened link.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN8H0RmqhQ42U1c35VxIjk4tc-G59fUD2hyijOPF1xNwl5o7f9gVThBzJMv5lHldQ?key=QjVrSHBLTE9fWVI4Ml9zbjNoS1ZQblpWZmloejhn
is not unsavory, illegal, adult content. :P I don't see much difference between goo.gl/photos/random_characters
and photos.google.com/share/random_characters
here. Does anybody else?