MySpace won't link to Blogger. Readable URLs.

While working on changing the URL of my blog, I went to MySpace to update the link that I have there. I found out that (for who knows how long) the MySpace page won't let you click any links to Blogger. It gives some message about how this links to a page distributing viruses, or phishing your password, or something. Both of my links to Blogger pages weren't working.

I used to work at a place where I had to print web pages, all day long. (And I got paid a lot more money than I get paid now to run around doing real work!) I found out that it's a real nuisance to print a web page with links on it if the links don't explicitly say what the URL is. For instance, a link that just says "Click Here!" doesn't tell you what the URL is, whenever you see it on a page that you printed out on paper. You just see "Click Here!" and have no idea what it is.

So I got in the habit of making sure that you can read the URL, or highlight it and copy-paste it, as well as click on it. This is a nuisance if the URL says "http://somewhere.com/?=q34980adfskcxjhv087ASD4w5da873240198423rkjdsvcxoiuydfsa98/09" (you get the idea). But I don't have any links like that.

Anyway, I'm glad that I did that. If anybody tried to go to that URL by clicking at MySpace, it might have been months and months without me even knowing that the link wasn't working. So at least they would have had some chance to say, "Well, I'll just copy this URL into the browser."

The reason why the link is able to "not work" is because MySpace changes all of your links so that they point to a page that says "Warning! You are about to leave MySpace," etc. Then you can click the link again for real, and go there. Well, for whatever reason, all of the ones for Blogger get changed to the "This is an evil website!" warning page instead of the page that lets you continue on to the real link.