{"id":44199,"date":"2024-07-23T15:34:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T19:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=44199"},"modified":"2025-08-06T15:01:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:01:18","slug":"google-breaking-url-shortener-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/23\/google-breaking-url-shortener-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Breaking URL Shortener Links"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.googleblog.com\/en\/google-url-shortener-links-will-no-longer-be-available\/\">Google<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/developers.googleblog.com\/en\/google-url-shortener-links-will-no-longer-be-available\/\"><p>In 2018, we announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.googleblog.com\/en\/transitioning-google-url-shortener-to-firebase-dynamic-links\/\">deprecation and transition of Google URL Shortener<\/a> because of the changes we&rsquo;ve seen in how people find content on the internet, and the number of new popular URL shortening services that emerged in that time. This meant that we no longer accepted new URLs to shorten but that we would continue serving existing URLs.<\/p><p>Today, the time has come to turn off the serving portion of Google URL Shortener.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Note that the interstitial page may cause disruptions in the current flow of your goo.gl links. For example, if you are using other 302 redirects, the interstitial page may prevent the redirect flow from completing correctly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/512pixels.net\/2024\/07\/august-2025-the-death-of-google-url-shortener\/\">Stephen Hackett<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/512pixels.net\/2024\/07\/august-2025-the-death-of-google-url-shortener\/\">\n<p>A lot things on the Internet are going to break next fall. I know people like using short URLs for social media, or to hide tracking parameters, but this yet another example of why they are a bad idea.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2024\/7\/19\/24201734\/google-url-link-shortening-service-shut-down-support\">Jess Weatherbed<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2024\/7\/19\/24201734\/google-url-link-shortening-service-shut-down-support\">\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/3\/31\/17184164\/google-alphabet-url-shortening-service-closed\">Google announced in 2018<\/a> that it was shutting down goo.gl, the company encouraged developers to migrate to Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL) &mdash; which has also since been <a href=\"https:\/\/firebase.google.com\/support\/dynamic-links-faq\">deprecated<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/07\/19\/google-url-shortener\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/07\/19\/google-url-shortener\">\n<p>How much money could it possible cost to just keep this service running in perpetuity? Tim Berners-Lee wrote his seminal essay, &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/Provider\/Style\/URI\">Cool URIs Don&rsquo;t Change<\/a>&rdquo; back in 1998. It&rsquo;s bad enough when companies go out of business, taking their web servers down with them. But Google isn&rsquo;t struggling financially.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mas.to\/@carnage4life\/112810560354359655\">Dare Obasanjo<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mas.to\/@carnage4life\/112810560354359655\">\n<p>Google continues its epic run of reminding people why you should never depend on their services.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/04\/google-podcasts-is-gone\/\">Google Podcasts Is Gone<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/16\/twitter-delays-urls-for-certain-sites\/\">Twitter Delays URLs for Certain Sites<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/06\/this-url-shortener-situation-is-officially-out-of-control\/\">This URL Shortener Situation Is Officially Out of Control<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/30\/twitters-url-changes\/\">Twitter&rsquo;s URL Changes<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2024-08-08\">Update (2024-08-08): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/cool-urls\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/cool-urls\/\">\n<p>In principle, I support this deprecation because it is confusing and <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sophos.com\/en-us\/2018\/05\/01\/google-maps-open-redirect-flaw-abused-by-spammers\/\">dangerous<\/a> for Google&rsquo;s own shortened URLs to have the same domain as ones created by third-party users. But this is a Google-created problem because it designed its URLs poorly. It should have never been possible for anyone else to create links with the same URL shortener used by Google itself. Yet, while it feels appropriate for a Google service to be unreliable over a long term, it also should not be ending access to links which may have been created just about five years ago.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-07-28\">Update (<a href=\"#google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-07-28\">2025-07-28<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/713125\/google-url-shortener-links-shutdown-deadline\">Emma Roth<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/713125\/google-url-shortener-links-shutdown-deadline\">\n<p>On August 25th, 2025, all links in the &ldquo;https:\/\/goo.gl\/*&rdquo; format will no longer work and return a 404 error message.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/07\/26\/google-link-shortener\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/07\/26\/google-link-shortener\">\n<p>It&rsquo;s fine that Google stopped allowing for the creating of new links a while back, but there&rsquo;s no reason they should ever stop redirecting existing links. The whole reason anyone might have used goo.gl instead of something like <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/\">bit.ly<\/a> is misplaced trust in Google. I trust Google with almost nothing long-term. Mark my words, they&rsquo;re going to do this with Gmail accounts eventually.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-08-04\">Update (<a href=\"#google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-08-04\">2025-08-04<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/technology\/developers\/googl-link-shortening-update\/\">Google<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/08\/03\/google-reverses-course-on-googl\">John Gruber<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/technology\/developers\/googl-link-shortening-update\/\"><p>While we <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.googleblog.com\/en\/google-url-shortener-links-will-no-longer-be-available\/\">previously announced<\/a> discontinuing support for all goo.gl URLs after August 25, 2025, we&rsquo;ve adjusted our approach in order to preserve actively used links.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>To check if your link will be retained, visit the link today. If your link redirects you without a message, it will continue to work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&rsquo;d love to know why they decided to change their mind. This is still going to break links that are in old e-mails or slide decks or other places where they aren&rsquo;t actively being crawled.<\/p>\n\n<p id=\"google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-08-06\">Update (<a href=\"#google-breaking-url-shortener-links-update-2025-08-06\">2025-08-06<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/googl-short-links\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/googl-short-links\/\">\n<p>This sounds like a big change, but it is a very small one &mdash; according to Google&rsquo;s statistics, the ongoing support affects less than 1% of all shortened links.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So, despite the backtracking, they&rsquo;re still breaking 99% of the links.<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/googl-short-links\/\">\n<p>Also, even though Google says it is &ldquo;discontinuing support for all goo.gl URLs&rdquo;, this is not true either. Google continues to use that domain for shared links created from its own apps like Maps and Photos. It says in its post from last year those links will continue to work. I think this is the original sin of this URL shortener and why the company is reluctant to keep supporting it. Google should never have used the same domain for trusted links it created and untrusted URLs from users.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google: In 2018, we announced the deprecation and transition of Google URL Shortener because of the changes we&rsquo;ve seen in how people find content on the internet, and the number of new popular URL shortening services that emerged in that time. This meant that we no longer accepted new URLs to shorten but that we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-07-23T19:34:22Z","apple_news_api_id":"ce6ea6c6-c18c-4406-83e1-e970b1304c5f","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-08-06T19:01:21Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Azm6mxsGMRAaD4elwsTBMXw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1016,51,1451,489,96],"class_list":["post-44199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-datacide","tag-google","tag-sunset","tag-url","tag-web"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44199"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48797,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44199\/revisions\/48797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}