Jordan Kettner

Google has recently announced that they have finally released their version of a URL shortener – goo.gl.

The goo.gl URL shortener will be integrated into the new Google Toolbar and Feedburner.

Google says that there are three main benefits of using goo.gl instead of other URL shortening services (bit.ly, tinyurl, etc.):

• Stability: Google’s scalable, multi-datacenter infrastructure provides great uptime and a reliable service to our users.
• Security: As we do with web search, shortened URLs are automatically checked to detect sites that may be malicious and warn users when the short URL resolves to such sites.
• Speed: At Google we like fast products and we’ve worked hard to ensure this service is quick. We’ll continue to iterate and improve the speed of Google Url Shortener

This tool is not available on goo.gl as a standalone application, it is only available through the Google Toolbar and Feedburner.

At this point they have not released a process to check stats for your links like bit.ly, and I believe that this is a huge missed opportunity for Google. I don’t see many power users switching over to goo.gl without this API functionality.