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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Thomas Overgaard dared to utter,
> The day tinyurl.com is down or totally gone there will be a lot of
> useless links at groups google.

I wonder just how many links archived in usenet, tinyurl or otherwise,
are now useless. The web is a pretty dynamic beast, with new content
being added daily and old content being removed just as often. I
suspect those fears that tinyurl's future demise aren't quite
justified, though I admit to feeling them as well.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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On 2005-10-02, +Alan Hicks+ <alan@lizella.netWORK> wrote:
>
> In alt.os.linux.slackware, Thomas Overgaard dared to utter,
>> The day tinyurl.com is down or totally gone there will be a lot of
>> useless links at groups google.
>
> I wonder just how many links archived in usenet, tinyurl or otherwise,
> are now useless. The web is a pretty dynamic beast, with new content
> being added daily and old content being removed just as often. I
> suspect those fears that tinyurl's future demise aren't quite
> justified, though I admit to feeling them as well.
>

Just as a curiosity...last year we indexed about -- give or take several
thousand -- 10k websites, then extracted the links contained on those
website that were external links and found almost 30% of the external links
were bad, dead, decreased...doesn't take into account redirection etc.

ken

On 2005-10-01, Thomas Overgaard <thover@post2.tele.dk> wrote:
> MikeReynolds wrote:
>
>> Are the specs known for how tinyurl creates it's links?
>
> The code after tinyurl.com is just a number, they started counting from
> day one and is still counting. The number refers to a URL in tinyurls
> database, and only tinyurl know which.
>
>> What will happen if and when tinyurl disappears into the ether?
>
> As only tinyurl knows what link the code/number refers to all tinyurl
> link will be totally useless.

Well lets hope that is for some reason tinyurl goes under, they make their
database available for someone to take over.

--
Best Regards,

Mike Reynolds

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 21:17:40 +0200, Thomas Overgaard wrote:
> Mark Hill wrote:
>
>>
>> Actually, I'd personally prefer if people didn't use services like
>> tinyurl.com.
>
> Subscirbe.
>
> The day tinyurl.com is down or totally gone there will be a lot of
> useless links at groups google.

also ich.

--
greymaus

On 1 Oct 2005 17:10:36 GMT,
Mark Hill <m@rk.invalid> wrote:
> [Off Topic]
>
> On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 09:50:04 -0500,
> +Alan Hicks+ <alan@lizella.netWORK> wrote:
>>
>> In the future, please use tinyurl.com if you're going to paste
>> a really long link. Thanks. :-)

> ...I'd much prefer a long URL and know where it's pointed towards.

In addition to this concern and Thomas's point about long term
availability (both of which I agree with), I'm not too crazy about
helping yet another entity compile a database on my browsing
interests.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA