Developers, some of them at least have a tendency to pass descriptive attributes in the URL to represent hierarchies of data, transaction paths and session information. This makes the URL long and complicated to understand and remember. It makes copying a URL for posts on forums or in e-mail messages difficult and garbled. Therefore a short URL is easier and more convenient to copy or use in these modes. So, what is URL shortening? When a URL is too long, it is squeezed into few characters to be able to send them over instant messaging modes or e-mails or to share in any other way. What is Google URL shortener? It is a short URL service wherein there is an allotment of a short URL for long URLs for which service has been requested.
Then, what is Google URL shortener API? This is a method to use a common program to interact with the URL shortening service. The Google URL shortener is called goo.gl, which was released in September last. The API has been released in 2011 which lets the name goo.gl be carried in the URLs that are shortened. Google’s URL shortening services are fast and reliable with Google security backing. The Google URL shortening service collects statistics and generates QR barcodes too. With the API you can integrate the shortener into your websites, blogs or any web application. You can use simple HTTP means to create, inspect, and manage the short URLs from your desktop or mobile.
Using the Google URL shortening API is possible by accessing it on Google code. In the getting started guide, the API key is required to be extracted. Then you can access the API code based on the key. The Google URL shortening service protects you against phishing and spam also. As there is a word limit on messaging from social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, it is highly recommended to have your URLs shortened with goo.gl to enable you to share the URLs on the messaging services.
It is also very useful to have a short URL to remember and read. Sometimes short URLs are the result of spam and phishing and are called prank URLs. With Google’s Safe Browsing connected to the URL shortening services, you can have safe sharing of your URLs that have been shortened. Sometimes there are sites that block certain domains and by blocking such URLs it restricts spamming. In case of a shortened URL getting redirected to a blacklisted domain, it bypasses the restriction set by such sites. In such a case, the URL redirection service is itself blacklisted. The Uniform Resource Identifier are mostly backed by URL shorteners. These include https, ftp, pop, imap, nntp, ldap, gopher etc. However, there are certain others not supported for security reasons. These are data: and javascript:.
Thus we can find ample reasons to have your URLs shortened and using Google shortening services is a good way of shortening that you can use.
