If you rely on Google URL Shortener to keep your links brief, you’ll need to find a new way to send those short URLs. Google is turning down support for its Google URL Shortener, which was launched in 2009.
Google announcement on the Google Developers blog page that from April 13 onwards, anonymous users and users who have never used the URL shortener to create shorter URLs previously will not be able to create new short URLs via the goo.gl console. Existing users who have used URL shortener before will still can to use it till March 30th 2019. After that time, shortened links will continue to redirect to their destinations.
Google’s replacement for goo.gl is Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). They are a much more advanced form of deep linking, which allow a link to be automatically tweaked depending on who the user is, where they link from, and what hardware they are using. The same FDL link will work on desktop, mobile, even from within an app. The user experience will be seamless while behind the scenes the correct destination will be chosen at the time of the click, tap or voice command.
Although Google is encouraging FDL as a replacement for goo.gl, it’s not the only alternative. If you want to continue using a simple URL shortener, then Google recommends switching to Bitly or Ow.ly as an alternative.
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1 Comment
Mariusz · May 10, 2018 at 1:16 pm
It’s sad because I’ve been using goo.gl for the last few years. I have recently moved to https://urlgt.com and I highly recommend this url shortener.