"Jens Krueger" wrote in message
...
If you format a link in brackets it tends to survive a couple of
quoting levels.

Even a broken URL isn't hard to reconstruct. Regardless...

[...]
The biggest problem I have with those services is that they don't
archive well.

Define "archive well".

Usenet is very well archived, you can still find posts
from over ten years ago; including references to websites. Try that with
a "tinyurl". How long do they keep those "tiny" references?

As far as I know, forever. makeashorterlink.com specifically says in their
FAQ that, as long as they are around, their links will work. tinyurl.com
doesn't have an FAQ, or any real documentation beyond "here's how to use our
service" as near as I can tell. But I would be surprised if it's different.

What makes you believe that the shortened URLs age at all, never mind in an
unreasonably short period of time. I think it's more likely that the
original URL itself will go out of date before the shorter reference URL
does. The web is filled with dead links.

Pete