Search giant Google has launched its goo.gl link-shortening service, creating a potential showdown with the rest of that industry and further expanding Google’s reach into all manner of products involved with the practice of search engine optimization (SEO).
Link-shorteners are among the numerous subsidiary industries that have been created by the skyrocketing popularity of microblogging service Twitter. Services like Bit.ly, ow.ly, and tinyurl have provided a way for users to insert links into their posts while remaining within Twitter’s 140-character limitation.
Twitter and Google have developed a close relationship in recent months, with the search giant finalizing a deal with Twitter to index the service’s tweets in real time and embedding them in the main search results. Twitter has also reached a similar agreement with Microsoft, though that company does not fully incorporate its real-time results into main search pages.
Google’s new service should further increase the options available to Twitter users and help businesses who already use other Google services better integrate social networking into their search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns.
