Are URL shorteners safe? Is it safe to use URL shortener? Are URL Shorteners Safe? How safe are shortened URLs? Is link shortening safe? Is it safe to use a shortened link? Are URL shorteners safe? Is it safe to use URL shortener?
Are URL Shorteners Safe?
A research paper published four years ago by Shmatikov and Martin Georgiev says URL Shortening is unsafe. According to the researchers Shortened URLs due to their short lengths are vulnerable to brute force attacks by the hackers. It therefore can have privacy consequences.
Additionally people feel secure only in clicking on links that looks more like genuine. As shortened links seem spammy, therefore, it is highly possible that people or your website visitors may not click on them.
Another reason that makes URL Shortener unsafe is users have less control over URL Shortener system and the links it shortened. It is possible that the shortened URL may redirect visitors to a spammy website instead of the actual. In such case you may lose your creditably in front of your customers/website visitors.
Almost all URL Shorteners kill those links that stays inactive for over a month. In such case you may also lose visitors to a specific website link.
On the other hand those who favors URL Shortening argued that the danger of URL Shortening has been overblown mainly based on the idea that user is unaware of the final URL which could be a malicious site. According to them users are safe with antivirus, URL blacklist and browsers’ regular security updates.
