Matt's link thing

A simple service that drops no cookies and just sends you to whatever link the rest of the link is.

FAQ

How do I make my own links?

https://link.ab-in.uk?go=<your-link-here>.

Why is this a thing?

I wanted to add links to my RSS that a content stealing spammer's script would not auto-replace thus keeping a link to the canonical and original thing. This was the easiest and least effort way to make that happen.

How does that work?

It makes your link look like an external link (which it is). Site scraper scripts are usually too dumb to fiddle with such links. You get credit and Google knows who the cheat is (I hope).

Cookies?

I'm not here to track you so I see no reason to drop cookies.

These links are not shorter.

Correct. This is just a tool to hide links home from dumb site scrappers.

Is this not slower?

Yes. But I was not planning for speed. That said, the links 301 So the second click by the same person will be faster. Also the script is pretty darn nippy due to being short.

Does this pass link juice?

I hope so. It probably does. Ask Google.

How smart is this thing?

Dumber than a bag of hammers.

I typed something stupid and the link gave me an error.

This script is not smart. If you give it garbage data it gives you garbage links. Try an actual link.

Do you count hits?

No. That would be too much like hard work.

Do you record any data?

Not currently. I'll probably do an update that notes the domain in the redirect at so I can keep an eye out for bad actors doing bad things. However, I am lazy, so I might not.

Why does this site look so basic?

I'm lazy and CSS is extra work. This is what an almost no CSS website looks like. Enjoy or whatever.

Does this work in Russia?

No. I have blocked traffic from Russia. You can probably guess why.

Who are you?

I am Matt. I make things on the Internet. I'm @lordmatt on Twitter.

Are you eco-friendly?

Yes. This site is powered by 100% renewable energy.

Is this utterly hacker proof?

I hope so but it does not matter. The only thing running on this entire cloud instance is this one page of code. Like, 10 lines of PHP. The only output is pre-written text and the link results. Honestly this FAQ is many times larger than the code. Everything else is taken care of by my hosts frankly impressive security. I've tried all the usual ways to break this and I am happy that I did a pretty decent job. Feel free to test it. If you find I've done something dumb, message me on Twitter.

What is ab-in.uk?

Oh yeah, that. ab-in.uk is generic image hosting for hot-linking for blog posts. I made it for authorbuzz.co.uk.

I found a bug

How? Never mind. I'm @lordmatt on Twitter. Talk to me.