Google’s shortened links will stop working next year

If you ever used Google’s URL shortening service goo.gl before it was shut down in 2019, be warned — those links will stop working on August 25th, 2025. Google announced in a blog post that “the time has come to turn off the serving portion of Google URL Shortener,” and that any links in the https://goo.gl/* format will respond with a 404 error next year.

Ahead of the shutdown, goo.gl links will start showing an interstitial page on August 23rd, 2024, notifying users that “this link will no longer work in the near future.” This message will initially appear for a “percentage of existing links’’ which will increase as the deadline draws closer. Google is encouraging developers to update impacted links as soon as possible, however, as this interstitial page may cause disruptions to link redirections.

When Google announced in 2018 that it was shutting down goo.gl, the company encouraged developers to migrate to Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL) — which has also since been depreciated.