URLTeam
Urlteam | |
url shortening was a fucking awful idea | |
URL | http://urlte.am |
Status | Online! |
Archiving status | In progress... |
Archiving type | Unknown |
Project source | https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/urlteam-stuff |
Project tracker | http://tracker.tinyarchive.org/ |
IRC channel | #urlteam (on hackint) |
TinyURL, bit.ly and other similar services allow long URLs to be converted to smaller ones on their specific service; the small URL is visited by a consumer and their web browser is redirected to the long URL.
Such services are a ticking timebomb. If they go away, get hacked or sell out millions of links will be lost (see Wikipedia: Link Rot). Archive.org/301Works is acting as an escrow for URL shortener databases, but they rely on URL shorteners to actually give them their databases. Even 301Works founding member bit.ly does not actually share their databases and most other big shorteners don't share theirs either.
301Work cooperation
The fine folks at archive.org have provides us with upload permissions to the 301Works archive: http://www.archive.org/details/301utm. They unfortunately do not want to make them downloadable, but the same data is in our torrents too, just in a different format (we use pipe-delimited, xz-compressed files while 301works uses comma-delimited uncompressed files).
Tools
- fetcher.pl: Perl-based scraper by User:Chronomex
- TinyBack: Python 2.x-based, distributed scraper (also works with the Warrior)
TinyBack
The easiest way to help with scraping is to run the Warrior and select the URLTeam project. You can also run TinyBack outside the warrior, thought Python 2.6 or newer is required:
git clone https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/tinyback cd tinyback # Use ./run.py --help for more information on command-line options ./run.py --tracker=http://tracker.tinyarchive.org/v1/ --num-threads=3 --sleep=180
URL shorteners
New table
The new table includes shorteners we have already started to scrape.
Name | Est. number of shorturls | Scraping done by | Status | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
Tinyurl.com | 10,000,000,000 | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to azzzzz | new shorturls: non-sequential, 7 characters |
Bit.ly | 50,000,000,000 | Warrior | scraping: non-sequential, 6 characters | new shorturls: non-sequential, 6 characters |
Goo.gl | ? | User:Scumola | started (2011-03-04) | goo.gl throttles pulls |
is.gd | 934,134,706 (2013-05-20) | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to kZZZZ | new shorturls: non-sequential, 6 characters |
ff.im | ? | User:Chronomex | only used by FriendFeed, no interface to shorten new URLs | |
4url.cc | 1279 (2009-08-14)[1] | User:Chronomex | dead (2011-02-15) | |
litturl.com | 17096 (2010-04-15)[2] | User:Chronomex | dead (2010-11-18) | |
xs.md | 3084 (2009-08-15)[3] | User:Chronomex | done | dead (2010-11-18) |
url.0daymeme.com | 14867 (2009-08-14)[4] | User:Chronomex | done | dead (2010-11-18) |
Old tr.im | 1990425 | - | got what we could | dead (2011-12-31) |
New tr.im | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to 42pzz | new shorturls: sequential |
visibli (hex) | 16777216 | User:Chfoo | Cake at 28%. Incomplete ~4.3mil 91MB | Using links.sharedby.co/links/ as URL prefix. |
ur1.ca | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to dzzzz | new shorturls: sequential |
ow.ly | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to lzZZZ | new shorturls: sequential |
snipurl.com | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to 271~~~~ | new shorturls: sequential, starting from 20wa5rt |
post.ly (Posterous) | ? | Warrior/EC2 | done | dead |
vbly.us (formerly vb.ly) | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to 2hba | new shorturls: sequential |
arseh.at | ? | Warrior | scraping: sequential, done up to 4fv3 | new shorturls: sequential |
Name | Number of shorturls | Scraping done by | Status | Comments |
Alive
Last verified 2013-04-17. Original list last updated 2009-08-14 [5].
- adf.ly
- adjix.com
- ask.fm - ask.fm/a/40k05kgp
- awe.sm
- biglnk.com
- budurl.com - Appears non-incremental
- buff.ly - Buffer App
- burl.se
- cli.gs - Appears non-incremental
- cl.ly - CloudApp
- decenturl.com - Not at all easy to scrape.
- dld.bz - "private URL shortening service"
- dlvr.it
- doiop.com - Appears non-incremental
- easyurl.net - Appears non-incremental: http://easyurl.net/afd2f
- flip.it - Flipboard
- fnd.us (See offical shorteners)
- fwdurl.net
- go.to
- ilix.in - HTML redirect
- jdem.cz - Incremental with random (?) last digit: http://jdem.cz/bw388
- korta.nu
- metamark.net / xrl.us - ? http://xrl.us/bfabog
- myurl.in - http://myurl.in/xtP5H / http://urlgator.com/xtP5H /http://ug4.me/xtP5H / http://link-ed.in/xtP5H - HTML redirect
- notlong.com - Appears to be alpha-only: http://yeitoo.notlong.com/
- nutshellurl.com - Appears incremental. 301s to a redirector script, which then 301s you to the destination.
- ph.ly Related to the pond called Philadelphia, where links are born and raised
- po.st
- r.ebay.com
- ri.ms
- rod.gs
- redirx.com - Lowercase alpha only, appears sequential or guessable: http://redirx.com/?wyok
- sharedby.co - See vsb.li. Double redirects via USERNAME.sharedby.co/share/XXXXXX
- shar.es (See offical shorteners)
- shorl.com - Doesn't appear guessable: http://shorl.com/tisikestibahu
- shorturl.com - Probably sequential/loweralpha: http://alturl.com/wqok
- shrinkurl.us - Alway telling URL is malformed
- shrd.by - see sharedby.co
- shrt.st - Appears incremental: http://shrt.st/vpz
- simurl.com - Doesn't appear guessable: http://simurl.com/panpes
- smarturl.eu / joturl.com / zip.sm - Doesn't appear guessable, HTML redirect.
- snipr.com / snipurl.com / snurl.com - Appears incremental: http://snipr.com/27nvst http://snipr.com/27nvtt
- soa.li - Gigya inc.
- surl.co.uk - Many shortening options.
- ta.gd
- tighturl.com - Appears incremental: http://tighturl.com/30xu http://tighturl.com/30xv
- tiny.cc - Appears non-incremental
- tinyarrows.com
- tweetburner.com / twurl.nl - Appears incremental
- twitthis.com
- u.mavrev.com - Not accepting new urls.
- urlcut.com
- vimeo.com
- xrl.us - see metamark.net
- yatuc.com - Not accepting new urls.
- yep.it
- ➡.ws
- ➨.ws
- ➯.ws
- ➔.ws
- ➞.ws
- ➽.ws
- ➹.ws
- ✩.ws
- ✿.ws
- ❥.ws
- ›.ws
- ⌘.ws
- ‽.ws
- ☁.ws
"Official" shorteners
- bull.hn - Bullhorn Reach (format: bull.hn/l/19JQE/)
- CokeURL.com - Coca-Cola
- db.tt - DropBox
- di.sn - Disney
- fb.me - Facebook
- flic.kr - Flickr
- fnd.us - Fundrazr.com
- goo.gl - Google
- go.usa.gov - USA Government (and since they control the Internets, it doesn't get much more official than this)
- gu.com - The Guardian (weird format - https://gu.com/p/3f7ca )
- hub.me - HubPages
- igg.me - Indiegogo
- lnkd.in - LinkedIn
- post.ly - Posterous
- shar.es - ShareThis - 404 on homepage, otherwise ok
- skfb.ly - Sketchfab
- spoti.fi - Spotify
- stanford.io - Stanford University
- su.pr - StumbleUpon
- t.co - Twitter
- tmblr.co - Tumblr
- wapo.st - Washington Post
- wp.me - Wordpress.com
- y.ahoo.it - Yahoo
- youtu.be - YouTube
bit.ly aliases
- 1.usa.gov - USA Government
- 4sq.com - Foursquare
- aje.me - Aljazeera
- amzn.to - Amazon
- binged.it - Bing (bonus points for being longer than bing.com)
- chzb.gr - Cheezeburger
- cnet.co - CNET
- cnnmon.ie - CNN Money
- conta.cc - Constant Contact Inc.
- dennysd.in - Denny's Restaurants
- dtoid.it - Destructoid
- econ.st - The Economist
- es.pn - ESPN
- gaw.kr - Gawker
- grd.to - The Grid TO
- huff.to - Huffington Post
- j.mp - bit.ly[6]
- jrnl.to - thejournal.ie
- kck.st - Kickstarter
- marsdd.it - MaRS Discovery District
- nyti.ms - New York Times
- onforb.es - Forbes
- onion.com - The Onion
- read.bi - Business Insider
- rseo.co - realseo
- sbn.to - sbnation
- slackers.co - slackers.com
- s.shr.lc - shareaholic - Naive, redirects any shortcode to bit.ly
- stjo.es - St. Joseph Media
- squid.us - Laughing Squid
- tcrn.ch - Techcrunch
- theatln.tc - The Atlantic
- usat.ly - USA Today Newspaper
- vrge.co - The Verge
- s831.us - whatever that is
Dead or Broken
- 1link.in - Website dead
- 6url.com - HTML redirect, Error 500
- ad.vu - mirror of adjix.com, application not found
- canurl.com - Website dead
- chod.sk - Appears non-incremental, not resolving
- digg.com - discontinued - [1]
- dwarfurl.com - Website dead/Numeric, appears incremental: http://dwarfurl.com/08041
- easyuri.com - Website dead/Appears hex incremental with last digit random/checksum: http://easyuri.com/1339f , http://easyuri.com/133a3
- go2cut.com - Website dead
- gonext.org - not resolving
- imfy.us - requires a recaptcha to get to the linked site, and avast goes nuts. DNS fails to resolve.
- ix.it - Not resolving
- jijr.com - Doesn't appear to be a shortener, now parked
- jump.to - dead as of February 1, 2013
- kissa.be - "Kissa.be url shortener service is shutdown"
- kl.am - "kl.am Closes its Shell"
- kurl.us - Parked.
- lnkurl.com - Website dead
- memurl.com - Pronounceable. Broken.
- miklos.dk - Doesn't appear guessable: http://miklos.dk/!z7bA6a - "Vi arbejder på sagen..."
- minilien.com - Doesn't appear guessable: http://minilien.com/?9nyvwnA0gh - Website dead
- minurl.org - Presently in ERROR 404
- muhlink.com - Not resolving
- myurl.us - cpanel frontend
- nyturl.com - NY Times (bonus points for being longer than nyt.com, which they own). Taken by squatters
- pnt.me - Doesn't appear guessable, too big a space to bruteforce: http://pnt.me/FzAblc
- qurlyq.com - Javascript redirect. Appears sequential: http://qurlyq.com/5nf. Domain parked.
- s3nt.com - Probably sequential. http://s3nt.com/aa goes somewhere different from /ab . Domain parked.
- shortlinks.co.uk - Working again. Maybe not.
- short.to - Domain is parked - Probably sequential/loweralpha: http://short.to/msmp
- shrinklink.co.uk - Doesn't appear sequential: http://www.shrinklink.co.uk/45bmx , www.shrinklink.co.uk/npk6xp . Domain parked.
- traceurl.com - DNS fails to resolve.
- tr.im (1st generation) - "Be back soon!"
- twitpwr.com - Domain parked.
- u.nu - "The shortest URLs. period." Website dead since at least 1st of october 2010 (http://web.archive.org/web/20100104023208/http://u.nu/)
- url9.com - Sequential, alphanumeric. Leading 0s are significant. "The site is working correctly."
- urlborg.com - 404 Not Found.
- urlcover.com - Domain parked.
- urlhawk.com - Domain parked.
- url-press.com - Suspended by web host.
- urlsmash.com - DNS not resolving.
- urltea.com - Dreamhost's coming soon page.
- urlvi.be - Domain parked.
- urlx.org - Owner has agreed to share his database
- vsb.li / links.visibli.com/links/ - The latter uses truncated md5 hex string. See sharedby.co.
- w3t.org - 403 Forbidden.
- wlink.us - Domain parked.
- xaddr.com - Domain parked.
- xil.in - Under construction.
- x.se - Cannot resolve, but www.x.se works.
- xym.kr - Gibberish (?) Korean text blog.
- yweb.com - Suspicious iframe with long url and fake loading gif image.
- zi.ma - DNS not resolving.
Discontinued
- urlbrief.com - co-operates with 301Works.org