Google is killing all links of its URL Shortener goo.gl
Millions of links will stop working next year as a consequence of Google shutting down its URL Shortener service goo.gl.
Google announced the change on its Developer blog this week. According to the post, goo.gl links will stop working on August 25th, 2025. Starting next month, users will see an interstitial page that informs them about the upcoming termination of the service.
The page says "this link will no longer work in the near future". Users have the option to continue to the link target and to check "don't show this again" to skip the warning page until August 25, 2025.
Google says that the interstitial page may cause interruptions to certain workflows, including:
- If 302 redirects are used, the interstitial page may prevent the redirect flow from completing correctly.
- Embedded social metadata in the destination page may also likely not be shown anymore where the initial link is displayed.
Developers who notice interruptions may append the parameter si=1 to the query to skip the interstitial page. Note that this will only work until August 25, 2025.
Google URL Shortener
Google launched its URL Shortener in 2010. First used by Google Toolbar and Feedburner, it became later available for public use. I checked it out in 2010, even created a Ghack link -- https://goo.gl/pKTg -- and concluded that it was not really something that the world needed.
Google switched to a different internal system and stopped accepting new users since April 2018. One year later, Google turned off the service for existing customers.
While it did so, it did not touch the shortened links at the time. This changes next year with the termination of all shortened links.
Goo.gl URL Shortener alternatives
Developers and users who rely on goo.gl shortened links are advised to replace them as soon as possible.
Several alternatives exist, including:
- TinyURL - Been around for a long time. Offers a free account, which has a 100 URLs per month limit.
- Bitly - good for just 10 links per month, but maybe sufficient for some.
Closing Words
The number of existing goo.gl redirects that still work is unclear. Considering that Google stopped accepting new links in 2019, it is likely that a good percentage of links is no longer valid.
With that said, considering that Google and users created links for almost a decade, it is certain that a large number of links is still working and used.
Some of these will be replaced using direct links or other URL shortening services. Others will stop working next year and no one will know to which resource on the Internet they linked to.
What about you? Have you used URL shortening services recently? Or do you still use shortened URLs actively? Let us know in the comments down below!
URL shorteners are basically cancer. Especially the ones that do not provide any way of previewing where are you going to. What use do they really have apart from spam and abuse?!
You can use URLex to preview the long URL. Short URLs are useful when printed or posted on social media, so they don’t take a lot of space.
I guess they can’t just sell the domain to highest bidder because it could up for abuse and it has their name attached to it.. they “donate” the service to archive.org and keep the current links alive. The question is who actually sues googles link shortening? whats the legitmate use? I can only see the only use being to hide affiliates link, scam link, malware and pirated content, maybe a phew cellphone brainlets use the services.
A surprising percentage of the internet dies every year because of linkage issues. It’s become such a prominent issue it some circles it’s actually got a name: “link rot”.
There are various efforts to push back but nothing about archive.org or caching services or anything else matters when there’s literally no clue to what the original link was supposed to point to.
So I expect this decision to result in a very substantial and frustrating loss of good and useful resources online. That’s a shame.
I hope they change their minds but — as many other comments have noted — they do this a lot. If it’s not making 10 million dollars a year, it’s gonna get canned.
To take it a step further, if there is no history (google deletions), then history can be made-up as google sees fit. Add a twist of AI and wikipedia – voila! The world according to Marxists. Buckle in people.
A large unregulated private corporation taking total control is Marxism now. Interesting, I remember the old days when this was considered Anarcho-capitalism. I guess the cons identify as what ever they want now.
@efromme, Marxism, Fascism are words used nowadays irresponsibly. There is no Marxism in democracy and no democracy without defending everyone’s rights, those of the strong as those of the weak. Let us remember a red-haired politician’s words in a 2019 debate to describe the policy of his adversary as that of “radical left-wing” (“communist” so to say) when there was, there is not one ounce of Marxism in a Democrat leader ambition to emphasize on citizen’s rights.
The world according to Marxists is far away. The world according to Fascists, as arguable, is unfortunately much closer.
@Tom Hawack > “The world according to Marxists is far away. The world according to Fascists, as arguable, is unfortunately much closer.”
I cannot agree with such a sentence. Nowadays the words Marxism, fascism and Nazism practically mean nothing. It’s been almost a hundred years later and, IMHO, no one knows the true meaning of these three annoying words. This happens because the three words have been mixed into a great ideological meal according to the political ignorance of the people. People organize themselves into sides, some here, others there, and over the years they have all been collecting words from all three, even incorporating them into the democratic concept itself. It is paradoxical to think that Google’s great control could be seen as digital neo-totalitarianism, but this is not the case, it is simply an entity that seeks economic performance at all costs. Maybe Google is more powerful than we think. Maybe X (formerly Twitter) is also very powerful. And we could also think that Microsoft is capable of being included in a unitary multitotalitarianism of control, but it is not true from political power, but from service power: without them life would return to the stone age. That is why no ideology remains pure today, not even communism is pure anymore because it is already a hybrid mixture between commercial capitalism and political control. In fact, the anti-capitalist theses of Nuremberg in 1920 are almost identical to those of modern anti-capitalists, those who are even in the European Union.
We must not forget that fascism emerged in Italy in an agrarian socialist political party. And that Nazism emerged in a German national socialist workers’ party. It seems unbelievable that many of their slogans can be heard today in many parts of the world in different political sections that are totally contrary. In a world where truth does not exist, any lie, any mixture of authority united with a criterion of defense of the rights of property and freedom can already be considered radical. The same as when people’s rights are massively defended without including the legal regulations that imply the duties approved by law.
Just my two cents, of course, trees are green and rainy clouds are black.
By the way, thanks for the quote of Bukoswki, here is another one:
“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
? Charles Bukowski
@John G., seems to me we do agree when you write that “Nowadays the words Marxism, fascism and Nazism practically mean nothing.” and I evoke thet “Marxism, Fascism are words used nowadays irresponsibly.”.
But using strong words inappropriately does not mean that what they correspond to, in terms of ideology, in terms of society and economics does or does not exist. I believe that Marxism is definitely over but that Fascism may not be far away given the winds of right radicalism emerging over the planet. I believe as well that a characteristic of these winds is that they dishonestly try to legitimate themselves on the ground of fighting against Marxism, communism, Bolshevism (the latter term used by the right-wing collaborators to Nazis here in France and elsewhere during World War II), when there is nowadays no such thing as Marxism, communism or Bolshevism but only attempts to defend the rights of all against the rights of the strongest when those of the latter do not respect those of the former : that is not Marxism, that is plain and fundamental social justice. From there on, when I evoke winds of Fascism i have not in mind multinational corporations which have but one ideology : money. What I have in mind is people, common people who seem to be shifting from humanism to extremism, and that frightens me.
P.S. I deliberately avoid paragraphs because this is not an article and even less an essay. My apology to Martin for having bounced on the words of a former commenter which were themselves off-topic.
@Tom Hawack, > “What I have in mind is people, common people who seem to be shifting from humanism to extremism, and that frightens me.”
You are quite right here. Indeed, the problem is when a political activity becomes an attitude. If someone says that Google has methods of social control, of any kind, they are being led to think that Google has ideological positions. But no one can say that Google/X/MS have “attitudes” close to any ideology. Attitudes are personal only. So in this way, fascist is the censorship that, for example, some governments exercise over Google itself. And here we can include all types of governments, democratic and non-democratic, capitalist and communist ones. Furthermore, fascist attitudes are widespread today in society, often indirectly, for example, when someone wants to restrict the opinions of others. Many people are not satisfied with just saying that your opinion is bad, but they tell you how you have to think so that your opinion can be considered good. As a song says, everyone wants to rule the world. Luckily, while they try, no one succeeds. And here concludes my thoughts!
Thanks to @Martin to let us some kind of short off-topic discussion here! :]
You know, @John G, I think we often mistake attitudes with reality. I’m not sure what we’d call a fascist attitude may systematically correspond to fascist beliefs, which is why I’d prefer to use authoritarianism when it comes to government policies, authoritarian attitudes when it comes to people.
As we agreed above political and societal ideologies have a precise meaning and using them to describe an attitude may be inappropriate, as Marxism to define social justice, as Fascism to describe authoritarianism. Yet, what is frightening IMO is that attitudes may be the premise of ideology stricto sensu.
Nowadays we have no Fascist regimes and even less Marxist ones on the planet, though authoritarian, even extremist ones flourish. So, again, I remain extremely cautious when describing an attitude.
Same with racism, a word used abusively when you cannot compare true racism (asserting that there are human races and some are superior, biologically, to others) with the complaint regarding a foreign neighbor cooking food, dressing up, moving around in life in a way you dislike. The former is as dramatic as insane, the latter is a pity, not a drama. Not everyone is Fascist, Marxist, racist, in the authentic sens of the term, but more and more adopt — or openly admit — an attitude which years ago would have made them be ashamed. It is this release of thoughts and attitudes which bothers me now and frightens me for tomorrows.
Using ideological terms is hardly irresponsible. Using such political terms to describe the actions of google (a US corporation) is a step to far so you think? Ok, understood. So allow me this: So how do you explain goggles’ behavior since 2015? Or that of facebook, what about Wikipedia (an unbiased info source?). Observe the social media corps., even the MSM corps. And what about Hollywood? For them Marxism is not a four letter word; spoon feed the American public it, masking the jingoism until right-think is achieved. Corporations have been commandeered by ideology, empowered by the American Democratic Party to suppress voices, spread lies, use lawfare. Tactics previously foreign to American minds; read about in books (recall everybody’s favorite – 1984), seen in movies. Now its 24/7/365 – the war for your mind and money.
Remember, google at one time espoused the do no evil meme. Look what’s it doing nowadays. Corporations are not democracies, they are useful tools for the politically powerful.
Ever live in a communist society? Or socialist? I have. Stay well.
@efromme, you write,
“Using such political terms to describe the actions of google (a US corporation) is a step to far so you think?”
I think it’s a step in an area which is not that of ideology : business uses political orientations but has none of its own.
Whatever political regime around the world you’ve always had businesses making their way by using the right equations to deal with the regime.
You suggest that big business corporations have in mind more that profit, that they’d be guided ultimately by a deep ideological vision of the world. This is not my opinion. I’d even say that — IMO this time! — such allegations are anchored to conspiracy-theories.
Business is business, nothing else. Money never had and never will have the smell of ideology. Let’s not get excited with that.
Conspiracy theory huh Tom? That’s all we needed to see.
“Money never had and never will have the smell of ideology.” Money is power, in order to get more, a corp. needs high placed politicians to make or subvert change. What do you think corporate lobbyists do Tom? Why does google etc. donate money and services to democratic polits? Why did zuck/facebook donate millions to subvert state voting laws in 2020? Sure, money is inert; it doen’t vote. I’d be willing to bet that you think guns kill.
@efromme, what you are stating is not ideology, it’s plain opportunism.
“If you know who the next President is going to be, supporting him is probably a good business move — if you’re a gambler, you want to bet on the strong horse. Yes that’s cynical, but most super-rich people didn’t get where they are today by being ideological crusaders.” as quoted in a previous comment (where I should have skipped names, sorry for that, Martin).
You see, we agree.
Ideology is standing for your beliefs before anything else, money included.
Now, if money is to be considered an ideology by itself, then, indeed, businesspeople are excessively applied ideologues :)
One last word if I may regarding this off-topic.
Opportunism, pragmatism leads business, not ideology
Quote: “Understanding the new Tech Right – by Noah Smith”
[https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/understanding-the-new-tech-right] :
“(…) the fact that Trump is now heavily favored to win the election means there’s now an incentive for businesspeople to attach themselves to Trump, whatever their true beliefs. If you know who the next President is going to be, supporting him is probably a good business move — if you’re a gambler, you want to bet on the strong horse. Yes that’s cynical, but most super-rich people didn’t get where they are today by being ideological crusaders.”
Opportunism, pragmatism, not ideology. Doesn’t mean that leaders don’t have their very own beliefs, only means that they step on them when incompatible with profit, emphasize them when they are compatible. I admit that such attitudes are disgraceful. That’s all there is to it.
Your knowledge of economics is non-existent.
Please keep this on-topic going forward :)
Stop the laziness. Use real links.
Good riddance. Link shorteners are used to spread malware. I could understand link shorteners being useful in the days when social media posts and phone texts had character limits, but today that is not an issue. Hopefully they all go away.
On April 01, 2018, you wrought already – ” Google shuts down Google URL Shortener goo.gl”
“Google announced plans on Friday to shut down the company’s URL shortening service Goo.gl starting April 13, 2018.”
So that was an April First Fools Day joke?
Now I wonder if today’s article is a belated April 1 joke.
In 2018, Google stopped accepting new users and in 2019, it disabled the option to create new links. This did not affect created links, they continued to work.
I tend to use is.gd these days. In the past I preferred tiny.cc, but have recently found that some of these shortened links no longer work, and their destinations are forever lost!
Which is a good thing, mobile users started the hype out of convenience. Now they are paying the toll. A full URI resource locator was always needed due to being able to open the link on internet archives.
Why would anyone offer a free service forever if they cannot spy (make money) or make it a paid service?
TANSTAAFL
> and concluded that it was not really something that the world needed
Seems like that back in 2010 typing via annoying methods like arrow buttons on a tv remote (or gamepad) and gyro pointing at an onscreen keyboard weren’t so widespread.
Some days ago i needed to install an app on a tv where it wasn’t available on the store…i don’t want to imagine how i’d waste 10 minutes for typing a 100+ character url and pray i didn’t make a mistake with I/L and O/0 because that would mean starting over. At that time some random url shortener i found on Google was the best thing since sliced bread.
Never get cozy with any tech product. They will always kill it later on.
Google Maps still is creating goo.gl links. So are those going to stop working?
For example, go here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Googleplex/@37.4220541,-122.0878991,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x808fba02425dad8f:0x6c296c66619367e0!8m2!3d37.4220541!4d-122.0853242!16zL20vMDNiYnkx?entry=ttu
(It’s the address for Google’s HQ in Mountain View, CA.)
Then click the “Share” button.
It creates a goog.gl shortened link of:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4aAhAXzV97edo7wn7
Google has had fabulous apps like Google Answers, iGoogle home page that they killed or eviscerated like Analytics, Domains, cached pages in web searches…
Anyone who bets on anything Google for the long haul should have learned by now.
https://killedbygoogle.com/
Here I shorten links with either,
– [https://is.gd/] – Factually the only one really use.
– [https://tinyurl.com/]
– [https://s.42l.fr/]
I expand shortened links with either,
– [https://www.expandurl.net/]
– [https://linkunshorten.com/]
– [https://checkshorturl.com/] – Handles less shorten domains than two above.
I don’t use a dedicated link “expander” extension but rather redirect rules (with the REDIRECTOR extension which serves many more purposes) to automatically send clicked shortened links to one of the 3 above mentioned link “expanders”. Of course I’ve included only the main shortened urls’ domains to REDIRECTOR, so if I happen to encounter what is obviously a shortened link which is new to me, I send it as well to one of the 3 above mentioned link “expanders” but this time via the ‘Redirect Link’ extension.
In other words I never land on a site after having transited via ghost airfields.
Concerning goo.gl, last time I’ve used it i was younger, slimmer, stronger but far less modest than nowadays.. and that was a long time ago (not saying I’m as wise as old).
Tom Hawack, maybe I misunderstood by why not use?
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/url-shortener-for-google/aacgdipdhmilcpcpbdcloifondogabco
Or https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/url-shortener/godoifjoiadanijplaghmhgfeffnblib
Those ensure me there are no privacy issues.
But are there that you are not advising them?
@Paul(us) , I couldn’t even access the links you provide given [google.com] with many other Google servers are blocked system-wide here. I’d have to unblock temporarily or use a proxy or VPN. I could print the page via [https://www.printfriendly.com/] to view only your linked pages’ content but that would lead to a perspective out of my scope : using anything, any server, service, product provided by Google.
There are always, IMO shared by many others, privacy issues when you connect to a whatever Google server.
I advise nothing, I only share my experiences and beliefs, and avoiding systematically Google is one of them, together with anything else (to the extent of our knowledge) from the big, omnipotent GAFAM family (or should we rather now indicate as GAMAM : Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft). We get along very well without these insane intruders, with the exception of Windows, 7 still is it and bound to vanish when Linux will push out the only bastard remaining in our computing environment.
I’ve always used TinyURL as well. So Google is welcome to dispatch theirs to the Google Graveyard forthwith: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Google bull****, mostly similar to Microsoft bull****, never gives up. Thanks for the article! :]
@John G., so true!
Never giving up may sound positive, even heroic when applied to a combat zone. Yet life happens to be peaceful and then giving up may be the right thing to do.
Problem is that some people who should give up never do and some that shouldn’t, do.
Reminds me a word of Charles Bukowski : “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence”
I doubt a lot, LOL. If you’re intelligent you doubt, but doubting doesn’t make you a genius : what a pity!
That’ll be all for today :)
@Tom Hawack +100