In 2018, Google replaced its URL shortener service, goo.gl, with Firebase Dynamic Links, citing “the changes we’ve seen in how people find content on the internet, and the number of new popular URL shortening services that emerged in that time.” Although it stopped accepting new URLs to shorten, it continued to serve existing URLs that used their service. That’s about to change on August 25th, 2025, when Google will turn off the service portion of Google URL Shortener.
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deegeese@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
The responsible way to shut this down without causing link rot is to stop redirecting but return a non-clickable URL so they inconvenience users enough to encourage migration, while not breaking abandoned sites.