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Google has announced that links created with its URL shortener service will no longer work after 25 August 2025.
Any developer using links created with the Google shortener in the form https://goo.gl/* will be affected. These URLS will no longer return a response after the August date.
This is likely to affect large numbers of links. Google is signalling the closure well in advance, with just over a year for developers to audit and update links.
The deprecation of the tool was first announced in 2018 with Google no longer accepting new URLs to shorten but still serving those created with the service.
Ahead of the shutdown date, Google will start serving a warning message.
From 23 August 2024 an interstitial page will be shown for a percentage of existing goo.gl links notifying that the link will not work after 25 August 2025, before taking the user through to the target page.
The percentage of links showing the interstitial page will increase over time as the deadline approaches.
Google says the interstitial should help developers track any affected links that need to be amended. After the shutdown date, the interstitial will no longer be shown and goo.gl links will return a 404 error.
Google also warned that the interstitial page might cause disruption with the flow of goo.gl links:
“Note that the interstitial page may cause disruptions in the current flow of your goo.gl links. For example, if you are using other 302 redirects, the interstitial page may prevent the redirect flow from completing correctly. If you’ve embedded social metadata in your destination page, the interstitial page will likely cause these to no longer show up where the initial link is displayed. For this reason, we advise transitioning these links as soon as possible.
Note: In the event the interstitial page is disrupting your use cases, you can suppress it by adding the query param “si=1” to existing goo.gl links.”
