FYI: Facebook doesn’t seem to like shrunken links from “BudURL”
For those not familiar with URL shrinking, http://BudURL.com is one of many services which allow you to translate a long, ugly web address into something MUCH shorter. For instance, the URL for this blog post can be changed from:
- This: http://robertbucci.com/what-does-facebook-have-agains-budurl
- To: http://budurl.com/wjmg (you can customize the last characters)
I choose BudURL for its tracking options, but there are many other similar services.
When I attempted to share a post (which including a BudURL link) on my Facebook wall, the post failed without any error feedback. I tried resubmitting the post multiple times. — Thanks very little, Facebook!
The mystery revealed!
Fortunately, while using Facebook chat, ranting to a friend about my problems posting to my own wall, I was able to send the same BudURL link within the chat window. In this case, Facebook superimposed a pink background around the link and labeled it “Abusive Content.” The message was, “Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.”
My content Abusive? I think not!
If Facebook had actually ‘tested’ the content at my link, they would have discovered one of my Java Junk segments on YouTube. Nothing ‘abusive’ there — except, maybe the sight of me before a morning shave.
I chatted several other BudURL links. It didn’t matter to what webpage the BudURL actually pointed. Any ‘Bud’ link received the same flag. Apparently, some spammer must have used BudURL in the past and Facebook received enough user objections to flag the entire BudURL service. (hardly seems fair to the innocent BudURL service)
Which URL shrinkers does Facebook ‘like’?
Just for chuckles and grins, I tested other, popular URL shrinking services within Facebook chat, to see if they were similarly flagged as ‘abusive’. It seems that Facebook has singled out BudURL. (Grrrr)
The following an oh-so-brief list of common, URL shrinking services confirmed to work in FB without error:
OK, there’s my two cents.
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