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Google URL Shortener Opened To the Public

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the we-can-do-that-too dept.

Anonymusing writes "Just what the world needs, another URL shortener, right? Google seems to think so, and it's making its own widely available to anyone — complete with tracking and statistics — for free. As noted on its blog: 'There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you're protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products.' Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?"

3 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. bit.ly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Who's bit.ly?

    1. Re:bit.ly? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 0, Redundant

      The single most popular URL shortening service these days (largely because it's the default on Twitter; you know what Twitter is, right?).

  2. Re:Get your shortened goat guy while it's fresh! by Idiomatick · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'd mod you down if I hadn't posted yet, my bad.

    Also, I've got terrible memory (diagnosed) but I can still manage 3~5 letters....

    Your goatse link also made me think... there should be a FF addon that will automatically download the meta-tags / w/e from url shorteners. That way the mouse-over for the url will be to the eventual site. It'd make clicking url shorteners less worrisome. (I don't think THAT many forms of url redirection are being implemented so it needn't be that complex)