Why Some URLs Are So Long and What You Can Do With Them
Why are some URLs so long? Well, websites such as news sites which update their content constantly as new stories come in need a way to keep the URLs unique, so they generally create sub-folders and sub-folders of sub-folders, etc. naming them things like the date or category, etc. Then, most of the time, the filename of the article (minus the folder names) must be unique for filing away a copy in a flat (no sub-folders) area on a hard drive mixing articles regardless of type or category.
Also, there may be encrypted data tacked on to the end of the URL which is used to validate a user (as in the mock example above). Frequently this type of data is encrypted and then the internal representation is converted to hexadecimal which allows the data to appear as part of a URL. Hexadecimal (or hex) is composed only of the human-readable digits 0-9 and letters A-Z (not case-sensitive).
There may be other data tacked on to the URL which may not be encrypted and is human-readable. For example, a URL to watch a video may look something like this:
http;//www.somevideoservice.com//watch?v=m9RSyst5hXhM&feature=topvideos_entertainment
- and you can actually see the things which get passed: v and feature. v is the video id, and feature is topvideos_entertainment which means something specific to the video service (mock) in the example above.
Many times you may have copied a URL from the address box in your Internet browser and then pasted it in an email to friends. Then you find out the link was so long it got split into 2 or more lines after you sent it, rendering it unusable.
Well, a URL shortener will turn that URL into a short URL that won't get broken up. There are many of these services on the Internet.
For example, if you have a URL something like:
http;//www.johndoepost.com/2009/01/15/swipe-fees-interchange-banks-merchants_n_2637.html
- it may be split into 2 or more lines, not necessarily by your mail client, but by the mail client on the other end. You really have no way of knowing what the magic length is going to be, so the best thing to do is to keep the URL so short that it will never be broken up by a mail client.
That is what a URL shortener can do for you. The example above can be shortened to something like:
http;//someURLservice.com/3fac705c
- but most of the URL shorteners found on the Internet have relatively short URLs themselves and what they tack on at the end for you is also short.
So, long URLs are not going anywhere, so to speak; they are here to stay, but you can manage them.
Also, there may be encrypted data tacked on to the end of the URL which is used to validate a user (as in the mock example above). Frequently this type of data is encrypted and then the internal representation is converted to hexadecimal which allows the data to appear as part of a URL. Hexadecimal (or hex) is composed only of the human-readable digits 0-9 and letters A-Z (not case-sensitive).
There may be other data tacked on to the URL which may not be encrypted and is human-readable. For example, a URL to watch a video may look something like this:
http;//www.somevideoservice.com//watch?v=m9RSyst5hXhM&feature=topvideos_entertainment
- and you can actually see the things which get passed: v and feature. v is the video id, and feature is topvideos_entertainment which means something specific to the video service (mock) in the example above.
Many times you may have copied a URL from the address box in your Internet browser and then pasted it in an email to friends. Then you find out the link was so long it got split into 2 or more lines after you sent it, rendering it unusable.
Well, a URL shortener will turn that URL into a short URL that won't get broken up. There are many of these services on the Internet.
For example, if you have a URL something like:
http;//www.johndoepost.com/2009/01/15/swipe-fees-interchange-banks-merchants_n_2637.html
- it may be split into 2 or more lines, not necessarily by your mail client, but by the mail client on the other end. You really have no way of knowing what the magic length is going to be, so the best thing to do is to keep the URL so short that it will never be broken up by a mail client.
That is what a URL shortener can do for you. The example above can be shortened to something like:
http;//someURLservice.com/3fac705c
- but most of the URL shorteners found on the Internet have relatively short URLs themselves and what they tack on at the end for you is also short.
So, long URLs are not going anywhere, so to speak; they are here to stay, but you can manage them.
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