Google URL shortener about to be deprecated, will return 404s

[thewayne]

In 2018, Google started using something called Firebase Dynamic Links to replace Google URL Shortener. Theoretically, August 2025, the old goo.gl system will be shut down and any references to it will start returning 404 errors.

Google has a history of pushing back shutdown dates, so that date might not be firm, very hard to say. Regardless, if you used goo.gl a lot on web pages, you might want to start reviewing them and seeing what other services can be used, or convert them back to full, native links.

https://developers.googleblog.com/en/google-url-shortener-links-will-no-longer-be-available/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/07/18/216211/google-url-shortener-links-will-return-a-404-response

Comments

[silveradept]

Link shorteners are things of the "texts cost money" and "Twitter has a character limit" eras, and they've been really good for tracking people.

Of course, we would like to think that by now, we don't ever trust that any Google service will stay in existence for any longer than it takes someone to notice it and shut it down.

[thewayne]

Or in Google's case, if it doesn't directly generate enough ad revenue, shut it down.

[disneydream06]

Good luck people. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

You can probably do a search and find all of the pages that contain 'goo.gl', but fixing those links means tickling out what they point to, then either using the full link or parsing them through another link shortener then uploading the page again.  Not a huge deal, of course the amount of work depends on the number of pages and links.  There might be a way to automate it, but I'm not sure how I'd go about that programatically.  I'm sure someone has figured that out.