Confluence URLs: Pretty human-readable vs. Tiny Link (Confluence URL linked in JIRA)

Hi,

I am trying to understand which is the best way to work with Confluence URLs.
I did not find the settings yet, but I know that there is an option to enable/disable pretty URLs in Confluence.

e.g. pretty URL: https://confluenceinstance.com/display/INFO/2.+INFO+Open+Issues

e.g. tinylink: https://infopoint.celum.company/x/u4ERAw

On the one hand I like to see in a link already what it is about. But I understand if I change the name of the page or move the page to another space, etc. the link would be broken.
The tinylink works like a permanent link that is always available as long as the page exists (at least I believe so).

Our users are usually just copying the link from the browser’s address bar. Also if they copy links from Confluence to JIRA tickets.

  1. Is there any recommendation on how best work with this URLs? Did you disable the pretty-url to get rid of this issue?
  2. Can you add a link in JIRA to a Confluence page somehow else (without copy/paste the URL)? Ideally if there is an application link between those, JIRA converts it to a tinylink (within Confluence itself this works already out of the box).

Any advice appreciated!

best
Markus

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@mraab There is only a little to comment on left. Here are some thoughts and answers:

  • There are no flaws in what you have written above. So your understanding of links seems to be correct and thorough.
  • We do not deactivate the “long URLs” in Confluence. And as we never do, I do not even know if this is possible. It is not needed in normal settings.
  • Confluence is capable of dealing with broken links and remembers the page even if it is renamed and suggests to the user to go there. You can try it out and experience it yourself.
  • Especially for public facing pages we use a “manually” created shortlink link Linchpin Mobile or Confluence Enterprise Wiki – Effective Collaboration to allow for a short and pretty URL that is permanent.
  • The long URLs in Confluence should not be used publicly or in settings were a broking link would hurt (e.b. SEO).
  • It is correct, that as soon as you establish an “active link” between the Confluence page and a Jira issue, those will remain intact even if you change the page’s name.
  • I do not see a problem in users just copying the URI from the Browser window as Confluence deals with problems nicely. More advanced users in our company and with customers use the shortcut “K” and only communicate the short URL. Also okay.

I hope that covers your thoughts and helps.

Yes I have seen this many times, but I am not sure if this works all the time. The tiny link should definitely work always.

Is this page based on Confluence? It looks fantastic.
I cannot see where you use the tiny-url or how to create a pretty URL that is permanent. Is there something I am not aware of? To me a pretty URL is a human-readable URL as stated in the original post.

Linking between Confluence & JIRA:
It can be that the URL of a Confluence Page is simply pasted as a comment or into any text-field within an JIRA issue. Does this mean it is already an “active link”

I am asking all this questions as we want to restructure our entire system, which includes a lot of archiving & moving to different places & spaces.

No, this is not Confluence but a tailor made landing page.

For tiny links with our own name like Atlassian Products - Project Planning, Collaboration and Software Development we are using the open source software YOURLs, which I can highly recommend.

If you paste a Jira URI into a Confluence page (not a comment or micropost) it will automatically become an active link, if your Confluence and Jira instances are properly connected.

If you are in Jira, you cannot create such a bi-directional link. But you can manually link the Confluence page in the issue.

You are most likely aware, that we do offer professional services around these tasks.

Yes, I am aware about that you do offer professional services. I requested already consultation for another topic.

Anyway, thanks for the hint with YOURLs - never heard about that before.

In our case I want to be sure that links don’t break no matter how they were added.
So as I understand it now and what my test results in:

  • adding JIRA link to Confluence page -> active link
  • adding Confluence Page tinylink to JIRA -> will not break if page is moved as tinylink = permalink
  • adding Confluence Page pretty link to JIRA -> will not be linked directly, but Confluence realizes which link it should be & suggests the new link

For the last point I am not sure though if this still works after rebuilding the index, as I did not test this.

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