Posted by Fabian Schlup, Software Engineer
Starting now, goo.gl short links function as a single link you can use to all your content — whether that content is in your Android app, iOS app, or website. Once you’ve taken the necessary steps to set up App Indexing for Android and iOS, goo.gl URLs will send users straight to the right page in your app if they have it installed, and everyone else to your website. This will provide additional opportunities for your app users to re-engage with your app.
This feature works for both new short URLs and retroactively, so any existing goo.gl short links to your content will now also direct users to your app.
Zillow shares a short URL on Twitter that automatically links to their native app.
You can also make full use of this feature by integrating the URL Shortener API into your app’s share flow, so users can share links that automatically redirect to your native app cross-platform. This will also allow others to embed links in their websites and apps which deep link directly to your app.
Take Google Maps as an example. With the new cross-platform goo.gl links, the Maps share button generates one link that provides the best possible sharing experience for everyone. When opened, the link auto-detects the user’s platform and if they have Maps installed. If the user has the app installed, the short link opens the content directly in the Android or iOS Maps app. If the user doesn’t have the app installed or is on desktop, the short link opens the page on the Maps website.
Try it out for yourself! Don’t forget to use a phone with the Google Maps app installed: http://goo.gl/maps/xlWFj.
To set up app deep linking on goo.gl:
We hope you enjoy this new functionality and happy cross-platform sharing!
When we launched Google’s URL shortener externally back in September, there was no accompanying API to allow people to integrate goo.gl into their applications and web pages. However, we said that we were working on one, and today we're happy to announce that we’ve launched the goo.gl API in Google Code Labs. The documentation can be found on the Google Code site, with example code in the Getting Started section.
With this API, developers are able to programmatically access all of the fast, sleek goo.gl goodness that we currently provide via the web interface. You can shorten and expand URLs using the API, as well as fetch your history and analytics. You could use these features for a wide variety of applications, enabling behaviors ranging from auto-shortening within Twitter or Google Buzz clients to running regular jobs that monitor your usage statistics and traffic patterns. You can check out the Google APIs console to get started.
We’re very excited to be able to offer you this API to access one of the fastest URL shorteners out there. We’re continuing to work on several usability improvements and to make our auto-detection of spammy or malicious content even more robust. We hope that with the new API, you’ll find goo.gl to be even more useful in your future shortening endeavors! If you’re an application developer, check out the goo.gl API documentation and see how it looks.
