Shortlinks

About Shortlinking

General Information

Shortlinks are short web site addresses which redirect to longer ones. They are easier to remember and type then a long URL. More information about the topic can be found in Wikipedia's URL Shortening article.

Note: Within a Wiki article shortlinks are not clickable, but they will work in a browser bar without http:// or www. That is part of what makes them short.

An example shortlink would be as follows:

 freegle.in/croydon   which redirects to   https://www.ilovefreegle.org/explore/Croydon-Freegle

Shortlinks for communities

The basic format for community shortlinks is freegle.in/groupid where groupid is the form of the communities name used in the Explore page for the community. But there are variations. For instance

• freegle.in/lancasterMorecambe
• freegle.in/Lancaster
• freegle.in/morecambe

and nicknames

• freegle.in/toon

The list of current shortlinks is here - https://www.ilovefreegle.org/shortlinks

Shortlinks are centrally provided for all Freegle communities. Changes or additions can be requested by emailing shortlinks@iLoveFreegle.org

Why Shortlink

First, it is practical to use shortlinks when publishing the website address for a local Freegle community on pamphlets, business cards, bumper stickers, posters, etc. A potential new member will much more easily remember a shortlink then the longer community URL.

   freegle.in/Ambridge  is more memorable than  https://www.ilovefreegle.org/Ambridge-BorchesterFreegle

The shortlink is easier to type and faster to write down for someone taking note.

Second, shortlinks are by definition, short. Thus they are useful for displaying graphics and linking to other pages

Third, shortlinks are useful for providing easier to access URLs in place of more complicated ones. For instance, the following shortlink links to our Freegle Who's Who spreadsheet.

  freegle.it/WhosWho   goes to   http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tHlrrV6stByNXhbGduUVHrQ&output=html

The Google Documents target link is quite a mouthful. The shortlink is easier to remember and type. It is also self-descriptive, it is not hard to tell where it goes, while the long URL is a mystery until you actually load it up.

Lastly, shortlinks are internally useful by Freegle mods as they are simply easier to remember. If you wanted to visit the Freegle Who's Who spreadsheet above and could not use the shortlink, you might have to visit another web page or use a bookmark to find a link to the Who's Who spreadsheet. With the shortlink you can quickly load up the spreadsheet without having to go anywhere else first as freegle.it/WhosWho is easily remembered.

A URL shortlinking service for Freegle uses the domains freegle.in and freegle.it / frgl.it.

Freegle.in

Freegle.in shortlinks make it easier for Freegle mods to connect people with their local Freegle communities. They provide redirects to each community's page and are setup and maintained by the Freegle geeks team.

Several other shortlinks are setup at Freegle.in for redirecting to another location based Freegle page. For instance, Freegle UK region shortlinks redirect to the appropriate "Find a Community" region page on the Freegle website. And those interested in Freestock can visit freegle.in/aField.

Freegle.it

Freegle.it shortlinks are setup as needed for more miscellaneous targets, such as Freegle moderator discussion groups or Google documents that we want to make easily findable. To request a new shortlink, please email shortlinks@iLoveFreegle.org.

All Freegle.it shortlinks can also be accessed by using the domain name frgl.it. It is advised to use freegle.it when the URL will be visible and character limitation is not an issue eg. on a poster. The shorter version frgl.it is better used when the URL is not visible and when character limitation is an issue.

Tips & Tricks

Please note that all Freegle.it and Freegle.in shortlinks are case insensitive. For example, the following are all equivalent.

• http://freegle.it/WhosWho
• http://freegle.it/Whoswho
• http://freegle.it/whoswho
• http://freegle.it/wHoSwHo

Of course, the last option is a bit insane. ;)

In future the shortlinking application will be extended to allow shortlinks to optionally log tracking details via Google analytics as well. This will allow individual communities to provide the Shortlinking team with a Google analytics web property ID (the UA-XXXXX-YY number) which will then be used for tracking visits to your community page via a Freegle.in shortlink.

Notable Freegle Shortlinks

There are shortlinks to the core Freegle documents as well as the main Freegle moderator discussion groups. Some of these are listed below.

Google Documents

• Who's Who in Freegle - http://freegle.it/WhosWho
• Governing Document - http://freegle.it/GoverningDoc
• Freegle Accounts - http://frgl.it/Accounts

Main Groups

• Freegle Central Group - http://freegle.it/Central or http://frgl.it/Central
• Freegle Cafe - http://freegle.it/Cafe or http://frgl.it/Cafe

Working Groups

• Development - http://freegle.it/Development or http://frgl.it/Development
• Funding - http://freegle.it/Funding or http://frgl.it/Funding
• Tech - http://freegle.it/Tech or http://frgl.it/Tech

Helpful Misc Shortlinks

• Donate to Freegle - http://freegle.it/donate or http://frgl.it/donate

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