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Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

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Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#31

Post by pc86 »

foobarbecue wrote: post #14
discreditable wrote: post #9

PSA: You can make your own (relatively) shorter URLs if you're willing to guess at how to un-pretty site's URLs. My most common one is Amazon. Most URLs are amazon.com/dp/xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Knowing that you can take a nasty URL like: https://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00EHBERSE... and change it to: https://amazon.com/dp/B00EHBERSE That's 122 chars to 32 chars. This kind of tactic works for tons of sites.

Or just use http://a.co/gVf3K0x ...

They're talking about generating the shorter link just by looking at the first one (e.g., in your head).

How do you get your link out of https://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00EHBERSE... without using a tool?

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#33

Post by qwerty456127 »

bo1024 wrote: post #10

> To refocus our efforts, we're turning down support for goo.gl over the coming weeks and replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links[1] (FDL). Hmm, so replacing something simple and straightforward with something incredibly complicated aimed at a different use case... [1] https://firebase.google.com/products/dynamic-links/

Running an URL shortener. So effort. Wow :-)

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#34

Post by qwerty456127 »

gaius wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain to me what is the use case for URL shorteners? Other than for size limited messages like Twitter I guess.

On some forums/CMSes bare links to YouTube are converted to full-sized previews automatically and you can't disable this behaviour. You just make a piece of text a plain hyperlink to a YouTube video and once you click "submit" the parser comes into the play and a huge picture appears in the middle of your text instead of a couple of words. Masking the link with goo.gl solves the problem and adds an extra goodie letting you see how many people have followed your link.

Shortened URLs are also easier to type by hand / read aloud and look prettier visually.

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#35

Post by essayist »

gaius wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain to me what is the use case for URL shorteners? Other than for size limited messages like Twitter I guess.

Situations where a long and nasty url is printed, say in a church bulletin, and so has to be transcribed by eye to be useful.

E.g. imagine a non tech savvy person having to read and type in https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/20f094ea5a928af85-f... to sign up for a church supper.

is.gd/ourchurch-supper2018 is so much easier.

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#36

Post by slenk »

foobarbecue wrote: post #14
discreditable wrote: post #9

PSA: You can make your own (relatively) shorter URLs if you're willing to guess at how to un-pretty site's URLs. My most common one is Amazon. Most URLs are amazon.com/dp/xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Knowing that you can take a nasty URL like: https://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00EHBERSE... and change it to: https://amazon.com/dp/B00EHBERSE That's 122 chars to 32 chars. This kind of tactic works for tons of sites.

Or just use http://a.co/gVf3K0x ...

How do you easily shorten down to that? The others all used the same product code...his is a random URL

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #34
gaius wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain to me what is the use case for URL shorteners? Other than for size limited messages like Twitter I guess.

On some forums/CMSes bare links to YouTube are converted to full-sized previews automatically and you can't disable this behaviour. You just make a piece of text a plain hyperlink to a YouTube video and once you click "submit" the parser comes into the play and a huge picture appears in the middle of your text instead of a couple of words. Masking the link with goo.gl solves the problem and adds an extra goodie letti…

In short: working around broken 3rd party software, and tracking.

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#38

Post by tangue »

The decision was so poorly communicated that even A Google Product like the campaign url builder no longer works. And I didn’t really understand why I’d use Firebase for shortening an url and after clicking on the page I’m more confused than ever. So... back to bit.ly ...

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#39

Post by y_molodtsov »

xd1936 wrote: post #28

This decision makes no sense to me. Why would Google pass on all of this free analytics data? They also use subdomains of goo.gl for a ton of their own products. Google Maps shareable links are maps.goo.gl, for example.

Oh, I don't think they will have any issues using those themselves.

Re: Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

#40

Post by Gys »

tekism wrote: post #8

They can't even keep a URL shortner service up and running?

I suspect goo.gl sounds too much as a 'validated' Google link. Like the Amazon examples elsewhere in this thread. So users think falsely they can trust these links.

If true its actually surprising they kept the service going this long.

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