: Whats the reason websites rewrite external URLs to redirect through a local service? If you post anything on Twitter, the URL will be displayed as a regular URL, but it will actually take user

@Eichhorn148

Its for security reasons, they can run it through a database of virused/dangerous urls and if it then shortens it, it can then either warn you, or block the redirect. Many sites do this things, as I said: for security. Google does it for the "Visit Page" on an image and for certiant websites. Obviously Twitter does this as well, a lot of the times the shortened url is shorter than the starting url so if someone wants to copy it it is much shorter..

Also as someone said recently "it is for metric tracking" see where Twitter is being redirected to the most, they also send some analytics to the sites

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