Redirect service

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A redirect service is an information management system, which provides an internet link that redirects users to the desired content. The typical benefit is in a reduction in the length of the URL or web address. A redirect service can also provide benefit in giving a user-defined link to content. For example, a user may set up a link to a video on a popular website. If the owner of the website takes the video down, the user can now log in to the redirect service and point his custom link to another website providing the original video content. AimURL.com is the only service to announce plans for this functionality.

Another purpose for some redirection services is to prevent the referer information from the original web site to carry over to the end destination. When redirection services are geared towards this goal, they utilize client-side functionality such as the meta refresh tag, rather than a direct rewrite of the URL in the header. This is because the former implies to the web browser that it should update its referer information due to the fact that it has been served with an intermediary web page.

[edit] History

The first redirect services took advantage of the .to top-level domain (TLD). Two services are go.to and send.to. The first mainstream redirect service was clipurl.com.