Google announced that they will continue to support some links created by the deprecated goo.gl URL shortening service, saying that 99% of the shortened URLs receive no traffic. They were previously going to end support entirely, but after receiving feedback, they decided to continue support for a limited group of shortened URLs.
Google URL Shortener
Google announced in 2018 that they were deprecating the Google URL Shortener, no longer accepting new URLs for shortening but continuing to support existing URLs. Seven years later, they noticed that 99% of the shortened links did not receive any traffic at all, so on July 18 of this year, Google announced they would end support for all shortened URLs by August 25, 2025.
After receiving feedback, they changed their plan on August 1 and decided that they would move ahead with ending support for URLs that do not receive traffic, but continue servicing shortened URLs that still receive traffic.
Google’s announcement explained:
“While we previously announced discontinuing support for all goo.gl URLs after August 25, 2025, we’ve adjusted our approach in order to preserve actively used links.
We understand these links are embedded in countless documents, videos, posts and more, and we appreciate the input received.
…If you get a message that states, “This link will no longer work in the near future”, the link won’t work after August 25 and we recommend transitioning to another URL shortener if you haven’t already.
…All other goo.gl links will be preserved and will continue to function as normal.”
If you have a goog.gl redirected link, Google recommends visiting the link to check if it displays a warning message. If it does move the link to another URL shortener. If it doesn’t display the warning then the link will continue to function.
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