Share a link with the context it needs
A bare URL in a chat is a small act of faith. The recipient cannot see where it goes, why it matters, or whether it will still work next week. A shortener makes that worse: it hides the destination and adds a redirect that can be pointed anywhere later. A paste does the opposite — it shows the URL and the reason in the same place.
Why not a link shortener
- The destination is hidden. The reader cannot judge a link they cannot see, which is exactly the pattern phishing relies on.
- Short domains get recycled. A link that pointed at your docs can point somewhere else once the shortener's domain lapses or the owner changes the target.
- Redirects break tooling.
curl, archives and link checkers all have to follow the hop, and some do not. - Analytics you did not ask for. Many shorteners track every click, including the recipient's.
A paste keeps the full URL visible and adds the sentence that makes it useful.
Strip the tracking parameters first
Share links often carry campaign or session parameters that identify you and clutter the URL. Cut everything after the path unless it changes the content.
What to keep in a URL
# utm_*, fbclid, gclid, mc_cid and friends are tracking, not content
https://example.com/docs/page?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&fbclid=abc123
-> https://example.com/docs/page
# keep real query parameters
https://example.com/search?q=pastebin&page=2Watch for signed URLs (?X-Amz-Signature=, ?token=) — those are credentials with an expiry. Do not put them in a public paste; share the page that links to them instead.
A link paste that actually helps
Use the paste body for three things: the URL, what the reader should look at when they land, and what you want them to do. Set the language to plain text so the URL is not auto-linked in a surprising way, and add a title that names the destination.
Anatomy of a useful link paste
Title: Rate limit design doc (section 3)
https://example.com/docs/rate-limits#burst
Read "burst handling" — it is the part that conflicts with our
retry policy. Skip sections 1 and 2.
Questions: should we cap per-key or per-IP?Links that should not be public
Internal documentation, dashboards with customer names in the URL, invite links and pre-signed download URLs all belong behind a password, or out of a paste entirely. Mark the paste unlisted, add a password for anything internal, and set an expiry so the index of your internal links does not accumulate.
Frequently asked questions
Does pastesite.com shorten links?
No. There is no shortener and no redirect layer. You get a paste URL that contains the original link as visible text.
Will the link in my paste be clickable?
Plain-text pastes display the URL as text so you can see exactly what it points to. The reader can copy it or open it deliberately.
Can I share a link that expires?
Set an expiry on the paste so the note disappears, but remember it does not affect the destination URL. If the destination itself expires, say so in the paste.
Why do long URLs keep breaking in chat?
Chat clients wrap or truncate them. A paste keeps the whole URL on its own line, and the raw endpoint returns it as plain text for scripts.