Posted on 09/23/2010 8:43:39 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Google is doing it. Facebook is doing it. Yahoo is doing it. Microsoft is doing it. And soon Twitter will be doing it.
Were talking about the apparent need of every web service out there to add intermediate steps to sample what we click on before they send us on to our real destination. This has been going on for a long time and is slowly starting to build into something of a redirect hell on the Web.
And it has a price.
Theres already plenty of redirect overhead in places where you dont really think about it. For example:
And so on, and so on, and so on.
This is, of course, because Google, Facebook and other online companies like to keep track of clicks and how their users behave. Knowledge is a true resource for these companies. It can help them improve their service, it can help them monetize the service more efficiently, and in many cases the actual data itself is worth money. Ultimately this click tracking can also be good for end users, especially if it allows a service to improve its quality.
But
If it were just one extra intermediary step that may have been alright, but if you look around, youll start to discover more and more layering of these redirects, different services taking a bite of the click data on the way to the real target. You know, the one the user actually wants to get to.
It can quickly get out of hand. Weve seen scenarios where outgoing links in for example Facebook will first redirect you via a Facebook server, then a URL shortener (for example bit.ly), which in turn redirects to a longer URL that in turn will result in several additional redirects before you FINALLY reach the target. Its not uncommon with three or more layers of redirects via different sites that, from the perspective of the user, are pure overhead.
The problem is that that overhead isnt free. Itll add time to reaching your target, and itll add more links (literally!) in the chain that can either break or slow down. It can even make sites appear down when they arent, because something on the way broke down.
And it looks like this practice is only getting more and more prevalent on the Web.
Do you remember that wave of URL shorteners that came when Twitter started to get popular? Thats where our story begins.
Twitter first used the already established TinyURL.com as its default URL shortener. It was an ideal match for Twitter and its 140-character message limit.
Then came Bit.ly and a host of other URL shorteners who also wanted to ride on the coattails of Twitters growing success. Bit.ly soon succeeded in replacing TinyURL as the default URL shortener for Twitter. As a result of that, Bit.ly got its hands on a wealth of data: a big share of all outgoing links on Twitter and how popular those links were, since they could track every single click.
It was only a matter of time before Twitter wanted that data for itself. And why wouldnt it? In doing so, it gains full control over the infrastructure it runs on and more information about what Twitters users like to click on, and so on. So, not long ago, Twitter created its own URL shortener, t.co. In Twitters case this makes perfect sense.
That is all well and good, but now comes the really interesting part that is the most relevant for this article: Twitter will by the end of the year start to funnel ALL links through its URL shortener, even links already shortened by other services like Bit.ly or Googles Goo.gl. By funneling all clicks through its own servers first, Twitter will gain intimate knowledge of how its service is used, and about its users. It gets full control over the quality of its service. This is a good thing for Twitter.
But what happens when everyone wants a piece of the pie? Redirect after redirect after redirect before we arrive at our destination? Yes, thats exactly what happens, and youll have to live with the overhead.
Heres an example what link sharing could look like once Twitter starts to funnel all clicks through its own service:
It makes your head spin, doesnt it?
About a year ago we wrote an article about the potential drawbacks of URL shorteners, and it applies perfectly to this more general scenario with multiple redirects between sites. The performance, security and privacy implications of those redirects are the same.
We strongly suspect that the path we currently see Twitter going down is a sign of things to come from many other web services out there who may not already be doing this. (I.e., sampling and logging the clicks before sending them on, not necessarily using URL shorteners.)
And even when the main services dont do this, more in-between, third-party services like various URL shorteners show up all the time. Just the other day, anti-virus maker McAfee announced the beta of McAf.ee, a safe URL shortener. It may be great, who knows, but in light of what weve told you in this article its difficult not to think: yet another layer of redirects.
Is this really where the Web is headed? Do we want it to?
Same here.
I mean, I want lots of things too. And I hate redirects too. The biggest problem is that they keep you captive. You can’t just click back to where you were, so you have to close your browser, or search your history to see where you were. But usually when you identify a problem it’s nice to propose a solution or two, also. Makes for a better essay. When folks leave stuff hanging, that’s when my suspicions are aroused. Like those stores about the dangers of fast foods. What is unspoked is that they are laying the groundwork for legal advocacy. Maybe this author isn’t proposing this, but it would be nice if he would say what free-market approaches would work to alleviate the problem he describes.
Scroogle I suppose is a free market alternative. The author didn’t mention it though.
Thanks to reading the article and comments, I discovered Scroogle.
Going someplace by CHOICE is different than being forced to waste your time being redirected to where you don’t want to go...
You know, it strikes me this would be a good build-in or add-on for Firefox. If you're on a Google search result page, and you click a link, strip out the redirect and load the link page directly.
Hmmm, I don’t know if Firefox is covering for Google or not, but when I hover, I see a direct, explicit URL for the link from the search page. They may be keeping a score, but it doesn’t look like they’re doing an intermediate redirect.
John Rob is merely advising you that you're going external. It's the same info you see on many corporate and government sites if you select a link on a site outside of their control. I just click directly on the link in that message and bypass the additional delay. It's one more mouse click... I need the exercise. :-)
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