After inputting the URLs for the links into the page code and pressing save, the page would appear normal and the links would work, but when I returned to the source code to find the links, they had been converted into msplinks.com/ sub-urls with a long string of characters (msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vc2FpbnQ0NS44ay5jb20vbm... for example).
I tried to correct them, to no avail, and as I was irked but not really impeded, I ignored it for a while. Then I overrode the profile form layout with a blanket stylesheet, for which I had to manually input URLs for links to my images, blog, friends, "message me" etc. Links that I had mistyped were broken all over the page and I fixed them one by one... then yesterday Stephanie told me the link to my blog (this one) was broken. I pitched a miniature fit retyping every variation of the url I could think of, and every time I saved it, myspace converted it to an msplinks url. Except now, when clicked on my profile, the link would redirect to the myspace.com/ home.
I finally decided to get to the bottom of the msplinks thing, and did a little searching. It looks like msplinks.com was implemented as a sort of linking middle-man, and the sub-url string of numbers and symbols is to aid myspace.com in tracking the content of external links.
It's purported to be intended to crack down on comment spammers who link to spam sites (if the code of a commenter's link contains a domain which has been blacklisted as spam by msplinks, it encodes a redirect to myspace.com and breaks the link). But for some reason msplinks also blacklists Blogger sites (I'm not aware that spam Blogger links are exactly rampant or anything). People have invented programs which will convert a URL to an msplinks URL but without the redirect, but I guess myspace has discovered and shut those down, too...
I'm not pointing to any conspiracies, but I don't see how disrupting spammers justifies precluding people from linking to their own damned blogs. Perhaps they're concerned that their prestigious blogs.myspace.com service will lose some of its esteemed luster.
It's bullshit that we have to circumvent this at all, partly because if you're dumb enough to add a spammer as a friend, then you're pretty dumb and you deserve spam. But more to the point, it's another example of myspace censorship and proof that myspace is a chaperoned corner of the internet, which is to say that your page is not really yours. I'm still there because it networks me with people I wouldn't otherwise have contact with, but that's a diatribe for another blog, and for the time being we'll have to keep creatively cracking myspace's arbitrary limitations.
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Commentary aside, if you're trying to link to an outside URL from your myspace profile and it links back to myspace.com when you click it, do this to beat the blacklist:
1. Set up a new page at a non-blacklisted external domain (your personal dotcom, for example),
2. put nothing in it but a redirect script in the HEAD of the page:
<script>self.location="http://YOURURL";</script> 3. place your destination URL in the script,
4. and link your myspace profile to the redirect page instead.
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It's a pain in the ass, but it's worth it to have it your way. Speaking of which, if you want to override your profile layout with a clean style sheet like the one on mine, I'll be pleased to hand the code off to you. Things aren't getting any less fascist on their own.
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