We’ve been bracing for the eventual demise of Google’s shortened goo.gl links since last year now. The tech giant’s dedicated link shortener was sunseted back in 2019, but existing links have since continued to function as intended. Last year, however, Google announced the complete shutdown of said links as well, though it gave users a year-long period to transition before the August 2025 deadline.
Well, it is August now, and Google has officially walked back on its decision… at least partially.
Google today announced that it is tweaking its approach when it comes to killing off goo.gl URLs. The tech giant is still deactivating existing URLs, but it will let links that are actively used live on.
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.
Expect a large chunk of all links to still go dark
Google added that these active links are embedded in “countless documents, videos, posts,” and more, and killing them off could cause widespread disruption (despite the year-long headstart offered).
So for now, only inactive goo.gl URLs are being killed off. Said links showed no activity in late 2024 and subsequently began displaying the “This link will no longer work in the near future.” According to the tech giant’s original announcement last year, “these existing URLs saw less and less traffic as the years went on – in fact more than 99% of them had no activity in the last month.”
If your link redirects you to the intended page without a message, it is safe and will continue to work even after August 25th. If the link takes you to an interstitial page with the “This link will no longer work in the near future” message, then it will stop working after August 25th, and you should begin looking for a more permanent solution.
