# Loading data from a shortened URL fails with HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

**URL:** <https://forum.anaconda.com/t/loading-data-from-a-shortened-url-fails-with-http-error-403-forbidden/94219>\
**Category:** Bugs & Issues\
**Created:** [April 8, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://forum.anaconda.com/t/loading-data-from-a-shortened-url-fails-with-http-error-403-forbidden/94219 "2025-04-08T18:44:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LorenaBarba](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/anaconda/user_avatar/forum.anaconda.com/lorenabarba/32/6101_2.png) [@LorenaBarba](https://forum.anaconda.com/u/LorenaBarba)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://forum.anaconda.com/t/loading-data-from-a-shortened-url-fails-with-http-error-403-forbidden/94219/1 "2025-04-08T18:44:34Z")

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In many of my course materials, I have datasets that are loaded with `pandas.read_csv(URL)` where the URL is shortened using my university’s short-URL service. Here’s an example:  
[http://go.gwu.edu/engcomp2data4](http://go.gwu.edu/engcomp2data4)

You can see that this redirects to a raw .csv file in my course’s GitHub repository, and you can view the data directly on the browser. When trying to read the data into a pandas dataframe in an Anaconda Cloud notebook, I get HTTP Error 403: Forbidden. (It also happens with a URL to a Box shared file.

Is this something that can be resolved, or are there good reasons for this behavior?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LorenaBarba](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/anaconda/user_avatar/forum.anaconda.com/lorenabarba/32/6101_2.png) [@LorenaBarba](https://forum.anaconda.com/u/LorenaBarba)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://forum.anaconda.com/t/loading-data-from-a-shortened-url-fails-with-http-error-403-forbidden/94219/2 "2025-04-08T18:53:27Z")

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BTW, using ‘https:…’ instead also fails. This time with: URLError: \<urlopen error Tunnel connection failed: 403 Forbidden\>