For years now, [we have added links to apps.ubuntu.com with pretty little icons and banners][1]. Recent consensus is that [we should stop adding those links][2] (I agree).

However, the existing links had at least some value, until now. Their target pages used to have buttons with the `apt://` URLs, so even if the site didn't have recent releases, visitors could have conceivably used those buttons to install the software.

No longer:

    $ curl -I https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlc
    HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
    Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2018 11:22:14 GMT
    Server: Apache
    Location: https://snapcraft.io/store
    Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

The redirection makes no attempt to use the original URL, so users who click on such links are faced with a search page:

[![][3]][3]

I think this makes for terrible UX.

As I see it, we don't have many options. We can:

1. remove such URLs as we come across them
 1. or go on a rampage
2. ask SE to mass-remove them (not likely to happen, but probably worth a shot)
3. ask Canonical to use the package name as a search term:

        https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlc ->
        https://snapcraft.io/search?q=vlc

  This way, the links retain some marginal utility (though I assume the vast majority of "applications" on apps.ubuntu.com haven't become snaps).
4. Change these to `http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/...` (as suggested by @dessert). There are [~1500 posts with this URL][4] vs [~2800 posts with apps.ubuntu.com][5].
 1. Possibly by asking either SE to do so or Canonical to change the redirect.
 

Thoughts?


  [1]: https://meta.askubuntu.com/q/548/158442
  [2]: https://meta.askubuntu.com/a/17148/158442
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/0meDi.png
  [4]: https://askubuntu.com/search?q=url%3Aapt.ubuntu.com
  [5]: https://askubuntu.com/search?q=url%3Aapps.ubuntu.com