Google's goo.gl link shortener stopped creating new links in 2018, and goo.gl addresses that showed no activity in late 2024 were scheduled to stop working after August 25, 2025. Google revised that plan on August 1, 2025, and said all other goo.gl links would keep working. A goo.gl link that opens its destination without a warning page is safe to leave in place; one that shows a warning message is on the deactivation list.
Key takeaways
- Google announced the end of goo.gl link creation on March 30, 2018, while existing links kept redirecting.
- In July 2024 Google said goo.gl links would stop responding after August 25, 2025, and then narrowed that on August 1, 2025 to links with no recent activity.
- Opening a link is the official test: a plain redirect means it will continue to work, a warning page means it will not.
- Goo.gl links created by Google apps, such as Maps sharing, continue to work.
- Firebase Dynamic Links, the service Google pointed to in 2018, shut down on the same date, August 25, 2025.
A timeline of the shutdown
The service had two endings, seven years apart. The first closed the door to new links. The second concerned the old ones. The table below follows the dates published on the Google Developers Blog.
| Date | What Google said or did |
|---|---|
| March 30, 2018 | Announced the transition of Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links. Existing links would keep redirecting. |
| April 13, 2018 | Anonymous users and people who had never made a short link could no longer create new ones. |
| March 30, 2019 | Date set for closing the goo.gl console and the URL Shortener APIs for everyone else. |
| July 18, 2024 | Announced that goo.gl links would stop returning a response after August 25, 2025. |
| August 23, 2024 | A warning page began appearing for a share of goo.gl links, with the share set to grow until the cutoff. |
| August 1, 2025 | Plan narrowed: only links that had shown no activity in late 2024 would be deactivated. |
| August 25, 2025 | Cutoff date for the deactivated group. |
Why Google ended it
The 2018 announcement gave two reasons. The way people find content had changed, and many new URL shortening services had appeared. The 2024 notice added a number: Google reported that more than 99 percent of existing goo.gl URLs had seen no activity in the previous month. That figure is Google's own, and the post does not explain how activity was counted.
The 2024 plan was blunt. Every goo.gl address would stop answering, and any link without the warning would return an error after the cutoff. The August 2025 revision changed that, and Google described it as an adjustment made to preserve actively used links. The original text of the 2024 post still describes the full shutdown, with the August 1, 2025 update sitting above it, so readers who stop at the first paragraph can come away with the wrong idea.
Checking a link
Google's notice on the Developers Blog gives a plain test: open the link. If the browser goes straight to the destination, the link will continue to work. If a page appears saying the link will no longer work in the near future, it was part of the inactive group and is expected to fail after August 25, 2025.
The warning page itself caused trouble in 2024 and 2025. It can interrupt a 302 redirect and strip social-media preview data, so Google documented a workaround: adding the query parameter si=1 to a goo.gl link suppresses the warning page. This does not keep a deactivated link alive. It only changes what a visitor sees while the link still resolves.
The Firebase detour
In 2018 Google's recommended successor for developers was Firebase Dynamic Links. That product ended too. Google's Firebase FAQ states that Dynamic Links shut down on August 25, 2025, the same day as the goo.gl cutoff, after which clicked links return an HTTP 404 error and the .page.link domains cannot be kept or transferred. Anyone who followed the 2018 advice and moved to Dynamic Links therefore had to migrate a second time.
The Firebase page lists several third-party providers for deep linking and notes that Google has not vetted them. It also names App Links on Android and Universal Links on iOS as platform options for post-install deep linking. This article does not rank or recommend any of them.
Auditing short links in documents
Short links outlive the pages that cite them. A slide deck from 2016, a PDF handout, or a QR code on a poster may hold a goo.gl address with no one left who remembers creating it. The checklist below is a practical way to handle them.
- List every goo.gl address in the documents, sites, and printed materials that matter.
- Open each one and note whether it redirects cleanly or shows the warning page.
- For warned links, find the destination from the original source, an archive, or the author, and replace the short link with the full address.
- Where a short link is still wanted, choose a service on a domain the organization controls, so a vendor change does not strand the link again.
- Keep a record of old and new addresses in a spreadsheet, in case a printed code must be reissued.
Links created through Google apps are treated differently. Google says goo.gl links generated by apps such as Maps sharing will continue to function, so a shared map location from an older message is unlikely to be affected.
What was not confirmed
Google has not published counts of how many links were deactivated, and the inactive group was defined only as links with no activity in late 2024. Whether a given link was in that group can be settled only by opening it. Information in this article reflects Google's published notices as read on October 27, 2026, and an address that worked then can still change later.
FAQ
Do all goo.gl links still work?
No. Google's August 1, 2025 update says links that had shown no activity in late 2024 and carried a warning message stop working after August 25, 2025. Every other goo.gl link is preserved.
Can a new goo.gl link be created?
Not through the old service. Google closed link creation for new users in April 2018 and scheduled the console and APIs to close on March 30, 2019, as announced in its 2018 post.
Is Firebase Dynamic Links a replacement for goo.gl?
It was proposed as one in 2018, but Firebase Dynamic Links shut down on August 25, 2025, so it is no longer an option.
What does si=1 do?
It is a query parameter that, according to Google's notice, suppresses the warning page on a goo.gl link. It is a display workaround for link owners and does not restore a deactivated link.
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Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available (updated August 1, 2025), Google Developers Blog, 2024-2025
- Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links, Google Developers Blog, March 30, 2018
- Dynamic Links deprecation FAQ, Firebase, Google, 2025