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Following a round of criticism from experts earlier this year, Google has backtracked on plans to discontinue support for all its goo.gl URLs and will "preserve actively used links."
Last year, Google announced it would discontinue support for goo.gl URLs in late August 2025. These are links created by the Google URL Shortener, a link-shortening service broadly comparable to tools like Bitly, TinyURL, Rebrandly, and Ow.ly, which are often used by people working on short-form content where space is limited. Google URL Shortener was first rolled out in 2009, when Twitter (now X) enforced strict character limits.
James Foote, technical director at SEO firm Polaris Agency, told PCMag at the time that if developers failed to update their URLs, the move could result in over 280 million dead links, leaving users with nothing but 404 errors. "This level of 'link rot,' as it's affectionately known, could create a significant low-value computational cost for Google," he said.
Echoing those concerns, Google on Friday acknowledged these links are “embedded in countless documents, videos, posts, and more." So, instead of implementing a full shutdown, Google will take a mixed approach: Links that showed no activity in late 2024 will be deactivated, while those that did will remain usable.
If you need to find out whether your link will remain live, click it. If your link redirects to the message “This link will no longer work in the near future,” it will be deactivated on Aug. 25, 2025. If not, Google says the link will be preserved and continue to function normally.
Though goo.gl URLs have been saved from a trip to the Google Graveyard, many of Google's other tools said farewell this year. In June, Google killed off Android Instant Apps, a feature from 2017 that offered users a way to try out certain apps without fully downloading them, after faster mobile downloads made full installs almost as easy.