User talk:Bwn

Researching URL Shorteners

Here's what to do when you've come across a new URL shortener that should be archived. At minimum, please follow the first step. Anything beyond that is more helpful.

• Add it to the Alive section of this page in alphabetical order and the current date (hint: 5 tildes (~~~~~) will do that automatically). Please include whatever information you have, but at the absolute minimum, we need the domain.
  • To add a new shortener to the Alive section, you can use follow this template:

|- | shortener url || date (YYYY-MM-DD) | information you have gathered on the shortener

• Check the homepage. Is there a public method to create a shorturl? If so, create one and include it in the wiki. If not, note that in the wiki.
• If you were able to create a shorturl, try making a second. Is it sequential? For example, if the first link was foo.bar/dbE4g and the second link is foo.bar/dbE4h (or very close to it), it's probably sequential. If you get foo.bar/dbE4g followed by foo.bar/g4rTh, it's probably random. Note on the wiki whether the shorturls are random or sequential.
• Run curl -I http://url.short/validshortcode and see which HTTP status code is returned. Also note whether it returns the destination in the Location: header. Note both on the wiki.
• Run curl -I http://url.short/invalidshortcode and see which HTTP status code is returned. Note that on the wiki.
• Check the homepage, and see if they give a total number of shorturls that their service provides. If so, note that on the wiki.
• There are browser plugins available to make the curl requests described above from your browser for those without access to curl/command line. (Examples: Advanced REST Client, REST Console, etc)

Was:

Researching URL Shorteners

Here's what to do when you've come across a new URL shortener that should be archived. At minimum, please follow the first step. Anything beyond that is more helpful.

• Add it to the Alive section of this page in alphabetical order and the current date (hint: 5 tildes (~~~~~) will do that automatically). Please include whatever information you have, but at the absolute minimum, we need the domain.
• Check the homepage. Is there a public method to create a shorturl? If so, create one and include it in the wiki. If not, note that in the wiki.
• If you were able to create a shorturl, try making a second. Is it sequential? For example, if the first link was foo.bar/dbE4g and the second link is foo.bar/dbE4h (or very close to it), it's probably sequential. If you get foo.bar/dbE4g followed by foo.bar/g4rTh, it's probably random. Note on the wiki whether the shorturls are random or sequential.
• Run curl -I http://url.short/validshortcode and see which HTTP status code is returned. Also note whether it returns the destination in the Location: header. Note both on the wiki.
• Run curl -I http://url.short/invalidshortcode and see which HTTP status code is returned. Note that on the wiki.
• Check the homepage, and see if they give a total number of shorturls that their service provides. If so, note that on the wiki.

Official Shorteners

Shortener	Last Checked on	Notes
ask.fm		Ex: http://ask.fm/a/40k05kgp -> http://ask.fm/Q7Niki/answer/42128504404 ; seems non-incremental
Shortener	Last Checked on	Notes