Shortlinks

About shortlinking

General information

Shortlinks are short website addresses that redirect to longer ones. They're easier to remember and type than a long URL. More information can be found in Wikipedia's URL Shortening article.

Note: within a wiki article, shortlinks aren't clickable, but they will work when typed into a browser bar without http:// or www. - that's part of what makes them short.

An example shortlink:

 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 community's name used on its Explore page. 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 provided centrally for all Freegle communities. Changes or additions can be requested by emailing shortlinks@iLoveFreegle.org

Why shortlink

First, it's practical to use shortlinks when publishing a local Freegle community's website address on pamphlets, business cards, bumper stickers, posters and so on. A potential new member will remember a shortlink far more easily than 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, which makes them useful for displaying on graphics and linking to other pages.

Third, shortlinks make it easier to reach complicated URLs. For instance, this shortlink links to the Freegle Who's Who spreadsheet:

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

The Google Docs target link is quite a mouthful; the shortlink is easier to remember and type, and self-descriptive - it's not hard to tell where it goes, while the long URL is a mystery until you load it.

Lastly, shortlinks are useful internally for Freegle mods, simply because they're easier to remember. If you wanted to visit the Who's Who spreadsheet above and didn't have the shortlink, you might have to hunt through another web page or a bookmark to find a link to it. With freegle.it/WhosWho, you can load the spreadsheet directly.

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 redirect to each community's page, and are set up and maintained by the Freegle geeks team.

Several other shortlinks are set up at Freegle.in for redirecting to other location-based Freegle pages. For instance, Freegle UK region shortlinks redirect to the appropriate "Find a Community" region page on the Freegle website. Anyone interested in Freestock can visit freegle.in/aField.

Freegle.it

Freegle.it shortlinks are set up as needed for more miscellaneous targets, such as Freegle moderator discussion groups or Google documents we want to make easy to find. To request a new shortlink, email shortlinks@iLoveFreegle.org.

All Freegle.it shortlinks can also be accessed using the domain frgl.it. Use freegle.it when the URL will be visible and character limits aren't an issue, for example on a poster. The shorter frgl.it is better when the URL isn't visible and character limits matter.

Tips and tricks

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 one is a bit much.

In future, the shortlinking application may be extended to allow shortlinks to optionally log tracking details via Google Analytics too. This would let individual communities provide the Shortlinking team with a Google Analytics web property ID (the UA-XXXXX-YY number), used to track visits to your community page via a Freegle.in shortlink.

Notable Freegle shortlinks

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

Helpful misc shortlinks

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

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