[kwlug-disc] Link shortener advice

[Chris Frey]

On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 05:58:04PM -0400, Jason Eckert wrote:
> I avoid link shorteners altogether. Instead, I ensure that the description
> text is hyperlinked to the full URL so that the reader doesn't see the full
> URL unless they hover over the hyperlink. Of course for email, this
> requires it be in HTML format instead of plaintext.  In the few cases where
> plaintext is a must, I use footnotes (e.g. see Link#1 below and put
> Link#1:hyperlink) at the bottom of the message.

I agree.  The only advantage to link shorteners that I can think of
is when you have to manually type it in.  And that's pretty rare these days.

Is there another case I'm missing Paul?

If you have control of your own domain and website, you can easily
redirect some target URL on the server side, for those cases where you
want some handy marketing URL in printed material.

- Chris