Google URL Shortener Shutdown: Discover Your Next Steps

Published February 22, 2025 · GoTo.now Team

TL;DR - Google shut down goo.gl, its free URL shortener, and even old goo.gl links have now stopped resolving for most users. If you relied on it, you need a replacement - Ideally a free one whose links never expire, like GoTo.now.

Key points

• Google retired goo.gl for new links back in 2019, then began switching old links off too
• Any goo.gl links still in your posts, docs, or print are at risk or already dead
• The fix: recreate important links on a shortener built to last
• GoTo.now is free, links never expire, and click stats are private to you
• This is a good moment to audit every short link you depend on

Goo.gl was many people's first URL shortener - Free, fast, and backed by Google, so it felt permanent. It wasn't. Here's what happened, what it means for your old links, and how to pick a replacement you won't have to migrate away from later.

What actually happened to goo.gl

Google stopped letting anyone create new goo.gl links in 2019, pointing developers toward Firebase Dynamic Links instead - A tool for mobile app deep-linking, not a real shortener for everyday use. (Google later announced that product was going away too.)

For years, existing goo.gl links kept redirecting, so most people shrugged. Then Google announced the other shoe: goo.gl links would stop serving entirely, with a shutdown of the redirects themselves. Every goo.gl link out in the world - In old blog posts, PDFs, email archives, printed books - Points at a service that's been switched off.

Why this stings more than a normal shutdown

A short link is a promise: "this will keep pointing where I said." When a shortener dies, every link it ever made breaks at once. That's the unique risk of the whole category, and it's why the shutdown was a genuinely big deal:

• You can't patch print. A goo.gl link in a published book or old flyer is just dead ink now.
• Old content rots. Blog posts and forum answers full of goo.gl links quietly stopped working.
• Analytics vanished. Years of click history went with the service.
• Trust took a hit. If Google's shortener can die, people rightly ask, what can't?

That last question is fair - And it's exactly the question to ask your next shortener.

What to look for in a replacement

Don't just grab the first alternative. After goo.gl, the checklist matters:

Bitly, TinyURL, and Rebrandly all survive as options, each with paid tiers gating their better features. GoTo.now's answer to the checklist: free, links never expire, destinations are editable, stats live in a private dashboard only you can see, and every link ships with an editable QR code.

Moving on from goo.gl, step by step

The migration is tedious but simple. Budget an afternoon:

1. Find your goo.gl links. Search your site, docs, email templates, and social bios for "goo.gl".
2. Recover the destinations. If a link no longer resolves, check your old records or the Wayback Machine for where it pointed.
3. Recreate each link at GoTo.now - Give important ones readable custom endings this time, like goto.now/press-kit.
4. Replace the old links everywhere you control: posts, bios, signatures, documents.
5. Verify as you go. Paste each new link into the link checker to confirm it lands where you expect.

For links baked into print you can't reprint, there's no fix - Which is itself the lesson. Next time, print links (and QR codes) from a service whose links stay alive, and whose codes can be repointed after printing.

Life after the Google URL shortener

The shutdown was painful, but it clarified what a shortener really is: infrastructure. You're trusting it with every link you'll ever share, so permanence beats brand names.

Rebuild your important links once, on a service with no expiry date and no meter running, and this becomes the last migration you do. Set up a free account, move your top ten links today, and let goo.gl be the reminder - Not the pattern.