Google URL Shortener has become a highly popular tool over the years. It essentially allows you to take long URLs and squeeze them into concise links which are easier to share on other platforms. However, the platform’s deprecation was announced by the company back in 2018. Last year, the company announced that links shortened by the Google URL Shortener would soon no longer incite a response. This change is finally taking place next month.
Google URL Shortener Deprecation
In a blog post dated July 2024, Google announced that goo.gl links would now feature an interstitial page. These would appear prior to navigating to the original target page to notify users about the impending deprecation until the shutdown date. The company further said that the links would no longer be supported after August 25, 2025 and no response would be returned.
So, if you have any links shortened with Google’s tool, they will stop working exactly a month from now. Any developers using links built with the Google URL Shortener would be impacted, as per the company.
Although Google has not allowed the generation of new shortened links since 2018, it has continued to serve existing URLs. Last year, the tech giant provided a one year window to ease the transition of these links to another URL shortener provider.
After August 25, opening a page which has a link shortened by Google’s tool will show a 404 response. But why the deprecation?
As per Google, shortened URLs saw reduced traffic over the years. The company revealed that 99 percent of the links did not have any activity registered in the entire month of June 2024. It has since replaced the Google URL Shortener with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). These are said to be “smart URLs” which allow users to send others to any location within an iOS, Android, or web-based app.
However, a few services will be exempted from the deprecation. The company said that goo.gl links generated via Google apps such as Maps for location sharing will continue to function even after the August 25 deadline.
