Digg messes up with its link shortening service (Update: Kevin Rose responds)

Digg messes up with its link shortening service

Update 2: Digg has now confirmed that this is what they wanted to do and this is here to stay. So, in other words… Digg is no longer providing a link shortening service. Stop using Digg.com short URLs if you do not want to bother your readers…

Here is what Rose said:

I’ve been gone for 2 weeks so I don’t know what got pushed, what code got pushed and how it functions but my last understanding is that what we wanted to do is have it so that if you click on a Digg URL it takes you to the Digg stories so you can Digg it. Rather than providing a short URL service that just forwards and does redirection we would just do a URL service just for Digg articles. Just like the same way that Techcrunch does “techcrunch slash 85374″ – if you go to that you’re not going to go to some other site you’re going to go to techcrunch. That’s the story.

Update: Kevin Rose has posted on Twitter that he was unaware of this new development. He would look into it soon and we would soon get more information about it.

Digg has made some changes to their link shortening service which has become an annoyance for most of their members.

They have now forwarding unlogged users to the Digg page of a popular web page when they click on a Digg.com powered short URL.

Previously, the shortened link took the user directly to the source website rather than its page on Digg.com.

Logged in users had the option to visit the source page with or without the Digg Toolbar.

Digg has confirmed that the change is intentional. They have not given any details on why they made the change.

But it is not really working out for them in terms of user support. A couple of high profile members have already complained on Twitter.

This problem is magnified for those Diggers who use Digg.com as their link shortening service. Unsuspecting web users are sent to Digg.com site instead of the targeted source page.

If the DiggBar was not enough… Digg has now done the unthinkable.

TechCrunch calls it a career suicide!

If you want to see an example… Click on this link: http://digg.com/u190eZ while you are logged out of Digg.com.

Checkout: Did Digg Just “Bait & Switch” Twitter Users?