Ask HN: What's up with bit.ly links

1 point·DanielBMarkham··5 comments

Perhaps I should know this, but I don't

Is there any reason my latest post doesn't appear in the new posts list? I used a bit.ly link. Is there a problem with those? I don't think there was anything else unusual about the link, and I'm not a spammer or anything.

Is there a reason it was killed? (I suppose that's what happened?)

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1574847

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General idea is that you post the original source, not tracking URLs. I've not heard of items being killed before because of it, but I imagine someone might.

Maybe so. This is the first-ever time I've used a bit.ly link, and everything else was the same. That's the only thing that makes sense.

But killing the whole thing? Seems a little extreme, unless it was just a rule in the system. I was hoping perhaps it had been discussed before.

EDIT: Perhaps the person who down-voted me is also one of those who killed it. If so, an explanation or acknowledgement would be more useful to other readers and submitters than a simple down-vote. I'm still not sure whether it's a people thing or a system thing.

Url shortened links get autokilled because they're popular with spammers.

Thank you.

Now I (and other submitters) know not to use any kind of auto-shortener. That's what I needed to know.

There is usually an API to lengthen short links. You don't need to assume they are bad.

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