Last Week Google Announced That It Is Shutting Down Its URL Shortner Goo.gl. We Must Now Move to Greener Pastures, Says Competitor Bitly

You must have heard that Google goo.gl URL shortener will be shut down by 13 April, in favor of dynamic links. Letting go of your favorite URL shortener is hard; imagine going back to (gasp!) sharing longish links with no way to track them and analyze them.

Google announced that it will cease service for any new or anonymous users on 13 April. Yet, existing users can continue to use the goo.gl console until March 2019, competitor Bitly feels that there’s no time like the present to begin shortening, branding, tracking and integrating with one of the world’s leading link management platform.

In a statement announcing the availability of their URL shortening services alongside other, Bitly said, “Former goo.gl users are welcome to join the millions of people and businesses who shorten, customize, track, and manage their links with Bitly. We’ve been in the business of turning links into powerful assets for a decade, and in that time have introduced industry-leading features and functionality while continually building the most convenient, secure, and reliable Link Management Platform on the planet. In fact, just last week we announced our decision to encrypt all branded and unbranded Bitlinks with HTTPS as an added layer of security for our users and part of our commitment to the overall health of the Internet.”

Also Read: Bitly Receives $63 Million Growth Investment From Spectrum Equity

And how easy is that going to be? With Bitly, not only do you get the functionality Google’s URL shortener offered, but much more.

Here’s a list of cool things you could do with Bitly:

1. Brand and Customize your Short Links:
   You can set up your own custom domain, called a ‘Branded Short Domain’ while replacing the generic ‘bit.ly’ with something that more closely reflects your brand. For example, the Nike domain name is ‘swoo.sh’.
   Also, when you shorten a URL through Bitly, you can switch out the randomly generated letters in the back-half of the link and customize the text by clicking the ‘edit’ button next to the link.
2. Track all links:
   Want to know who’s engaged with your product/content? Which social channel is driving the most traffic? Is your campaign across email, mobile, print, and display ads working? Bitly promises to provide a clean, intuitive way to see how your links are performing at both an individual link level and as well as a whole.
3. Integrate Bitly into Your Workflow:
   Through Bitly Extension and App, you can automatically shorten, brand and share whatever web page you’re on directly to your social channels. The app also allows you to create and share links, plus view your analytics on-the-go.
   If you leverage other tools specifically for your social, content, ad publishing, marketing automation or analytic, Bitly comes in handy. It integrates with all kinds of software platforms, from Adobe to Zapier, so you can shorten links and track clicks across interfaces.
4. Leverage Links Strategically to Drive Results:
   Social Quant determines the best channels, times to post, and types of content for its customers by using different Bitlinks to A/B test each CTA’s shares and clicks. “This data helps us maximize our Twitter marketing and has helped our startup get over 25,000 visitors a month just from Twitter,” informs Social Quant CEO Mike Kawula.

It’s time to migrate from goo.gl, we say.

Recommended Read: Interview with Mark Josephson, CEO, Bitly