Google announced the deprecation of its link shortening service goo.gl almost seven years ago. Created in 2009, millions of Internet users have used the service to create shorter versions of links for sharing and archiving.
Back in 2018, Google disabled the option to create new links using the service, but did not touch existing links. Google revealed last year that it would delete all existing redirects by August 25th, 2025.
These plans have changed to a degree. Google announced that some links will continue to live on while other redirects will still be removed.
The company writes in an update on its The Keyword website:
While we previously announced discontinuing support for all goo.gl URLs after August 25, 2025, we’ve adjusted our approach in order to preserve actively used links.
We understand these links are embedded in countless documents, videos, posts and more, and we appreciate the input received.
Google realized, after six years (!) that some of the links were still used actively and that users who click on these links would not be very happy, if they suddenly stopped working.
The bad news is that Google won’t preserve all links. According to the post, links that show “This link will no longer work in the near future” when activated will stop working on August 25th. However, links that do not show the message will continue to work normally.
While that may make sense from Google’s point of view, it does not really help users or link creators much. You can only find out about a link when you click on it. If you do so right now, you either get the announcement about the links future or you won’t. Come August 25th, some links will stop working while others will continue to work.
To sum it up. The good news is that some links will continue to work after August 25, 2025. The bad news is that you do not really know which, especially after August 25. So, goo.gl links could still work when you click on them or they could return a not found error instead.
If you have used the link shortening service in the past, then you may want to modify these links, if you still have access to the site you posted the link on.