: Dealing with spam by blocking URLs? I run a giant community. Many spammers will use link shorteners or .tk domains that 301 to their spam offer. How are sites detecting the final domain and

@LarsenBagley505

There is plenty solutions to expand short url:


What is the best way in PHP or JS to expand shortened URLs like Bitly, Tinyurl to find the original URL?
ExpandUrl (a java solution)
Expand short URL – Simple PHP app for beginners
expanding short url to original url using PHP and CURL
Simple-URL-Expander (a javascript solution)


When user submit a new post, you can apply a function that expand url for all url inside the post. Then you will have the real url. So you can appy what ever spam solution you use to reject / accept the post.

You can also replace the shorten url by the full one to avoid short link on your commutiy board.

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@Dunderdale272

Many forums simply forbid all url shorteners. There is no simple solution to that, you may try also specific solutions for your platform (phpBB, vBulletin, etc.)

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