Using url shorteners?

Question

When uploading sources, is it appropriate to use url shorteners?  For example, https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/45a3c79603862?b=https%3A%2F%2Fcivilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie%2Fchurchrecords%2Fcivil-perform-search.jsp%3Fnamefm%3DElizabeth%26namel%3DStynes%26location%3D%26type%3DB%26ddBfrom%3D05%26mmBfrom%3D12%26yyBfrom%3D1889%26ddBto%3D05%26mmBto%3D12%26yyBto%3D1889%26type%3DM%26ddMfrom%3D05%26mmMfrom%3D12%26yyMfrom%3D1889%26ddMto%3D05%26mmMto%3D12%26yyMto%3D1889%26type%3DD%26ddDfrom%3D05%26mmDfrom%3D12%26yyDfrom%3D1889%26ddDto%3D05%26mmDto%3D12%26yyDto%3D1889%26submit%3DSearch


Is a nightmare. I know I can do it in G2G, but should I simplify it in source references?

Comments

Thanks for all the great answers. Firstly, I apologise. I did look for a previous question on this prior to posting, but nothing came up for me. So thank you Jim for the reference, and also the hint about square brackets. I'll take that away for non-genealogy usage as well 

Answer 1

Hi Brian. In general URL shorteners should be avoided. See my answer to a previous question.

Instead you can use the square bracket notation: [long-url display name]. See the help for Links to other websites.

Comments

A pox on URL shorteners! They disguise the link destination, which may lead an unsuspecting web user to malware, may cause cautious web users to avoid trying to access the link, or [if the underlying URL goes bad] could prevent users from identifying the source.

Jim Richardson has provided an excellent recommendation for documenting an external link instead of displaying a bare URL.

It is also very valuable to be aware that many long and complicated-looking URLs (including the example Brian gave) contain a great deal of unnecessary content (in particular, tracking information on what page you came from or what you were searching for when you accessed the link). On many websites, the ? and everything after it is unnecessary and can be removed (but we should test this to make sure). The URL https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/45a3c79603862 works fine for me. There is no need to preserve the rest of the URL for posterity, with or without the procedure that Jim Richardson recommended.

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Ellen is absolutely correct; all of that extraneous stuff after the ? is (in this case) nothing more than a reference to how the page was found -- in this case, by searching for Elizabeth Stynes within a particular set of records. That's not important to save.
 

But every web site is different. Sometimes those parameters include information vital to instructing the site which records to retrieve. (Those links tend to be the most volatile, though, as internal implementation details like that may change over time.)

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It should be noted that above Jim's answer to a previous question on this (he links to it in his current answer), is a definite statement that url shorteners (such as tinyurl etc) should not be used.

I think we're fairly unanimous, for many reasons. I've added the following line to to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Adding_Links#Links_to_Other_Websites

"Please do not use [https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1240093/when-should-tinyurls-be-used URL shorteners] such as Bitly or TinyURL."

commented by Chris Whitten

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Using the [square brackets] method is the best way to deal with those horrendously long urls some sites use, where Ellen's remove the extra tracking information suggestion isn't always possible, or desirable (as pointed out by Matthew).

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Can I add, please add a descriptor to any link [ link URL] results in a number [1] It doesn't tell me where the link leads. If you are viewing from an older phone or computer or from a slow internet connection clicking on such links can be problematic. Large PDFs can quickly fill memory.

  Much better if you write [URL + description of site, and/or type of document  ].

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Right, Helen. It's a helpful warning for a PDF link if "display name" or "description of site" includes the actual word "PDF", for example

[http...pdf Estate inventory (large PDF)]

Within the square brackets the URL is entered first (without any spaces in it), followed by the description, which can be multiple words separated by spaces.

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Ellen, Appreciate your idea as well. Thank you!