The Shortened Guide to Goo.gl

posted on October 1, 2010

Sometimes we find a news story that’s just not sexy. There’s not much to say about it, but we’d be amiss if we didn’t let you know about it.

This is one of those times: Google has opened up its goo.gl URL shortener for everyone to use.

It takes really long URLs:

And, that’s about it. Oh, it does have some cool analytics–but so does just about every other URL shortener out there:

Lastly, you can insert your own conspiracy theory about how Google will use goo.gl to sap PageRank or spy on you.

http://trafficcoleman.com/blog/ TrafficColeman

I just used it an it work well..lets see what the critics have to say because we know there coming.

“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/ Aaron

If the ‘bar code’ indicates that you’ll be able to print out a code that will be recognized by any Android phone – stick it in the window of your store and let Android users instantly navigate to promotions – that’s a huge distinction from its competitors.

The biggest advantage as I see it is that it’s Google, and thus it’s less likely that at some point in the future somebody is going to retire the service and redirect some or all shortened links toward their own pages.
http://www.vergent.net Jennifer@t1-line

Okay, but what is the purpose of this URL shortener? What benefits does it provide? Don’t you want URLs with keywords in them, anyway?

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