Google URL Shortener, aptly named Goo.gl, has been available for use for almost a year, and it finally has its own website. In the past, you could only use it through the Google Toolbar, or through specific Google products such as Feedburner, News, Blogger and Picasa. Now you can get all your Google URL shortening needs done on their recently launched webpage.

Google went about things in a somewhat back-to-front fashion, launching the service itself before the website. Now, with the new website, you can get access to statistics on all URLs you’ve shortened using Goo.gl, provided you’re logged into your account. These stats include traffic, referrers and visitor profiles.

As far as features are concerned, that’s pretty much all you’re going to get. Google have chosen to focus instead on stability, security and speed. According to their blog, their priorities are uptime and spam detection. They’ve also managed to double the speed of the service since its launch, and want to keep it that way.

There are a few unofficial browser add-ons already available to use with Goo.gl, like Chrome’s goo.gl URL Shortener and Firefox’s goo.gl lite, and Google will be releasing the Goo.gl API in the future, making it easy to incorporate their URL shortener in other third party applications.

Via Lifehacker

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)