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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?"

20 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. complete with tracking and statistics by Galestar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As in, one more place where Google gets to track you and make you a statistic.

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    AccountKiller
    1. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You have a point... as the goo.gl site says "All goo.gl URLs and click analytics are public and can be shared by anyone."

      Then again, it's the first URL shortening site that has a too-big-to-fail company behind it so we don't have to worry about a tr.im-like shutdown threat.

    2. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by pitchpipe · · Score: 4, Funny

      Am I doing this right? http://goo.gl/

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      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    3. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by Shikaku · · Score: 3, Informative

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/162021/

      This Firefox add-on (Their homepage http://long-shore.com/ has Opera and Chrome support as well) allowed me to hover the link and see that it was a Goatse link.

      Very useful.

    4. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny

      The best one? try cr4p - it links to Facebook. Easy to remember, and pretty descriptive.

    5. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by beakerMeep · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not just the tracking that's bad, it's all the problems that come with having an extra middle man and not being able to see what you are clicking. Certainly Google doesn't protect everyone from all malware that shows up in search results, there's no reason to think they can here (I think they do a good job considering, but malware is still hugely pervasive). It also breaks the move to a more semantic web. Just look at Slashdot's URL for this story and you can see what the story is about, what category it's in and when it was posted.

      interesting blog post i read a few months back about some of the pitfalls

      In my opinion URL shortening is bad for the web, and bad for usability. It's also something pretty easily created by any website on their own if they really need it.

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      meep
    6. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by HybridST · · Score: 5, Funny

      I got a rock...

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
    7. Re:complete with tracking and statistics by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative
      The link (see the info below) was created on September 11th. I certainly had nothing to do with it, since goo.gl wasn't public at the time. In other words, somebody on the google dev team is responsible for the link. Kind of expected with a lame service like yaus (Yet Another Url Shortener).

      This also explains why, until I pointed it out (found by random testing of obvious word+number combos) a couple of hours ago, it only had 5 hits in all that time. It's since had almost 800 in the last 4 hours alone

      So blame some google tester - not me. I'm just pointing out the flaws in the system - and there are many. Don't shoot the messenger, mkay?

  2. Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?

    Dunno, I've never heard of them before. Should I have?

    1. Re:Who? by YoshiDan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?

      Dunno, I've never heard of them before. Should I have?

      Only if you're one of the freaks that uses twitter...

  3. Chop off two letters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    g.gl, get to it google engineers. Short as hell.

  4. Unique feature by RichardDeVries · · Score: 3, Funny

    goo.gl shortens goo.gl url's as well! No, I will not write an evil script. Someone has to do the 'No Evil', right?

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    Error 001
    Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
  5. Keep working? by Leebert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    and it will keep working

    Like Wave, right?

    1. Re:Keep working? by deinol · · Score: 3, Informative

      and it will keep working

      Like Wave, right?

      You realize that while they stopped development of further wave features, it is still available and functioning for anyone who wants to use it?

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      Got Apathy?
  6. TinyURL by klui · · Score: 4, Informative

    I prefer TinyURL because it can give me a preview of the expanded URL.

    1. Re:TinyURL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just hazarded a guess and appended a + to a goo.gl url (since that's the syntax bit.ly uses) and lo and behold, it took me to the info page for the url.

    2. Re:TinyURL by randomsearch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      http://goo.gl/cr4p+

      The power of slashdot.

      RS

  7. Re:So, who's going to be the 1st to shorten goatse by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Funny
    Congrats. Your work?

    It would be interesting to test all the 4-letter/number combos and see what the distribution of content is. A simple test with a common 4-letter word shows that they're censoring words from the url shortening pool.

    BTW cr4p brings you to facebook - how appropriate.

  8. Still less reliable than a real URL by noidentity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    It's still less reliable than a URL to the actual page, and can still be used to trick people into visiting sites they would not want to visit if they knew the URL. And remember, these shorteners should only be used when a short URL is needed. Anywhere you can embed a link, it doesn't matter if it's ridiculously long. Only where the URL itself must be included as plain text does its length even possibly matter.

  9. In this day of drive by attacks... by Nyder · · Score: 3, Informative

    I find url shorteners to be dangerous. You don't know that it links to. And I find that everyone seems to use them, even the security "professionals" that it really makes no sense.

    While I understand how handy they are when you need to share a link with someone in voice or something. But I never click on them from articles or anything. I refuse.

    Imagine the Internet is a gun. URL Shorteners are the chambers. A bad link is the bullet.

    Now imagine that gun is pointed at your head, and everytime you click on a shortened URL, you are pulling the trigger.

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    Be seeing you...