All the levels of redirection

The web is full of redirection these days.

(Warning, a bit of a rant going on here)

I read a lot of content on my phone, and started to notice how much I am redirected around. This is something one usually doesn’t notice on a computer, since the connection is much faster, and I guess the browser renders in a different way.

Bounce

So I click on a link in Twitter app – aaand takeoff…

1. Content aggregator URL-shortener, in this case Twitters t.co (Google and Facebook have their own).
2. Web URL-shortener like bit.ly or a custom one like nyti.ms (not always, but often).
3. The actual URL.
4. Mobile specific version of the website with the same content.

This isn’t very nice

Sometime I feel I’m bounced around like in a pinball – is this really necessary?

The negative side is that can’t go back easily. I have to press the back button a number of times (quickly!) to get back to the place where the content was linked. In the case above, it would need four taps. I don’t want to count this stuff. So often I will just press it too many times to end up on another random post or even the home screen.

I know you giant merciless corporations like to keep records of our browsing, but this is pointless…

Link rot

What if any of the redirecting services in the line stops working?

What if the (medium) URL is lost on any of them?

Get it together web!