Last week, Google announced that the end is nigh for Google URL Shortener: shortened "goo.gl" web links will stop working on August 25, 2025, except for those generated by Google's own web tools.
In the meantime, an interstitial page warning users about the upcoming linkpocalypse will begin showing on a percentage of affected links, telling visitors that the link they've clicked "will no longer work in the near future." This percentage will increase until the shutdown date. According to Google, not many people will actually see this: "more than 99%" of goo.gl links went unclicked over the past month.
This news follows the announcement back in 2018 that Google planned to discontinue the link shortening service. The company stated that "many popular URL shortening services have emerged and the ways people find content on the Internet have also changed dramatically." Google directed devs to migrate over to Firebase Dynamic Links, a service it inherited when it purchased Firebase in 2014.
The only problem is that Google's deprecated that, too. It's now telling devs to use other deep-linking services for their link shortening needs, but warns of course that they haven't been vetted. The links serviced by Firebase Dynamic Links will also stop working on August 25, 2025.
The end of Google link shortening is perhaps not extremely relevant to the average PC gamer, but it's notable as an example of yet another Google service being sent to the graveyard (there's a whole website devoted to tracking them!). Here are some of our favorites, may they rest in peace:
And of course, we can't forget poor Stadia. Google's attempt at cloud gaming, Stadia was closed in January of last year primarily due to an inability to find market share.
