Google adopts 'g.co' URL shortener

Twitter users and Web surfers who prefer their URLs short can rejoice over search king Google, which has further concatenated its URL shortcut to a short and simple "g.co". Google, which launched its first public URL shortener goo.gl in 2009, said the new g.co shortcut will link only to official Google products and services. “We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service," vice president for consumer marketing Gary Briggs said in a blog post. Briggs said this will also allay concerns on security, noting one cannot always be sure if a shortened URL will lead to a malicious site. He said that Google acquired the g.co domain and will soon roll out g.co as its official URL shortcut for Google websites. “The shorter a URL, the easier it is to share and remember. The downside is, you often can’t tell what website you’re going to be redirected to," he said. He added only Google can create g.co shortcuts, meaning one can visit a g.co shortcut, “confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service." On the other hand, he said goo.gl will remain Google’s public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web. — TJD, GMA News