Google Starts Its Own Shortener & Goes With A Hack: Goog.Gl

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Google just launched it own Web shortener choosing a domain hack, Goo.gl.

Goo.gl was originally a proprietary way for Google to abbreviate its Web addresses within services such as Google News or Google Maps.

The new Goo.gl website will abbreviate your links and to share with others.

However unlike Godaddy and Twitter which recently launched their shortners with a one letter .Co, Google decided to go with a Hack.

Interesting.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  5. em says

    Funny. I think there are better shorteners out there. Without the “e” hmmmm….hard to say. I can hear it now, “Want a good shortener? Go to goo.gl. Its the Google hack without the “e”…and then just put the dot after the second “o”.” Sounds kinda like a commercial.

  6. Kiara says

    Yes, I use goo.gl
    Google use it if you connect your Feedbuner to your Twitter, the you will get goo.gl shortener service.

  7. Slate says

    Too bad you cant get vanity short names from Goo.gl like you can from X.Co

    Its nice having a nice vanity to sites.

    Just my opinion
    Cheers

  8. Slate says

    I was able to pick up some nice 2/3 letter descriptive dictionary words for my X.Co shortened domains.
    Plus I can keep track of their use and how often they are used within my Godaddy account.

    I enjoy the ease and complete control that I get from X.Co. Something that Goo.gl seems to be lacking.

    Just my opinion
    Cheers

  10. BFitz says

    Godaddy did get it right. Our vanity x.co links are showing great click thrus on our Facebook and Twitter posts. A cool tool would be able to re-assign the vanity to another domain. I have researched a few x.co which would be worth more than the domain (at least to me). What happens when you buy a crapy domain to get the x.co link? Will they be transferred to your account too?

  11. AVE4 says

    According to the Microsoft patents, they are using .0 [ dot zero].

    Everything to the left of .0 is FREE and part of a flat name space, with Uni-codes.

    Google may end up with… Google.0 for FREE

  12. [:punc:] says

    more punctuation means more typos. not to mention the spelling/semantic ambiguity of non-words (no problem for geeks to handle these, we enjoy them, but what about other folks?) more chaos, confusion… coming right up… thanks google 🙂

  13. AVE4 says

    “more punctuation means more typos. not to mention the spelling/semantic ambiguity of non-words”

    According to the Microsoft PNRP* patents, they are using .0 [ dot zero]. Everything to the left of .0 is FREE and part of a flat name space, with Uni-codes.

    Because Microsoft generally pays attention to REDUCED consumer confusion, one would imagine the .0 [dot zero] becoming some ICON.

    Uni-codes will also allow Ding.Bats (ICONS) in domain names.

    * PNRP – Peer.Name.Resolution.Protocol – FREE Root.Less DNS

  15. Mark Fulton says

    Purely juding the domain name, I don’t like it at all. Then again, I really don’t like my shortener of choice’s domain, bit.ly much more.

    I would be interested to see some study on click statistics. I have a feeling goo.gl, even in it’s ugly hack form, could potentially draw upon the familiarity and trust of the Google brand.

    What counts for me right now is how smart the shortener is. It’s the analytics that provide value.

  16. AVE4 says

    “It’s the analytics that provide value.”
    ==

    As the major platforms continue to push closer to the consumer and continue to push Domainers farther from the consumer, the “analytics” will come at a higher
    and higher price, if available at all.

    Google, Yahoo, BING, Twitter, FB, Bloomberg, etc. have built “platforms” on OPC*. That will likely continue. Many people seem willing to work for free.

    OPC – Other People’s Content

  19. AVE4 says

    “the #1 goal of all short URL services isn’t to have vanity links”
    ===

    Really? We did not know that!!!

    BI.TLY.CO

  20. BFitz says

    @Domainers Gate

    I am not really concerned with the goals of t.co, bit.ly, x.co, etc. MY goal is to increase the actual click-thrus of my placed links. A relative-keyword shortened link is as valuable as a keyword domain is verses a random one. (IMO)

    Call it vanity or whatever you like. I have already seen click-thrus increase from the dozens to hundreds. I have set up 400 x.co links for future use. I am not a squatter nor investor, I am an end user. I don’t think GoDaddy will create a marketplace for trading x.co and I hope they don’t, but it would be cool to transfer the x.co link to another url. (Yes this someone defeats the purpose, but how many link posts are so relevant to NOW.)

  23. ::: Domainers Gate ::: the #1 domainers sources directory ::: says

    “the goals of t.co, bit.ly, x.co, etc.”

    I don’t use short URL services for ALL the links, but only when they are really useful or absolutely necessary

    just take a look at the aviationweek.com articles’ links… they are so long and complex that some blogs systems “slice” (or don’t accept) them, so, if I need to refer to one of these articles, I MUST use a short URL service

    .

  24. BFitz says

    @Domainers Gate

    You are right, the value is not x.co/amazon but it could be x.co/BookSale or x.co/ShipFree (for amazon if they place links about their promotions)

  25. purehype says

    maybe it’s just me, but i could swear that in the early days of the www, long urls were actually welcomed. because it signified having dynamically-generated content, as the database configs people used meant looooong urls. and people thought dynamic content was “cool” (i.e., it was the latest trend).

    and aroudn that time there was enough anti-crawler sentiment from people crawling statc content to spurn the idea of robots.txt.

    we’ve come full circle it seems. now people like short urls. and websites actually *want* to be crawled. go figure.

    to me what’s cool is minimal typing, and FAST content. i could care less if some remarkable database backend is serving it up… i just want the data… without interactive input hassles, and FAST.