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Google has recently launched new and updated versions of their popular toolbar and Feedburner that offers a new URL shortening service from Google called the Google URL Shortener.

People share a lot of links online. This is particularly true as microblogging services such as Twitter have grown in popularity. If you’re not familiar with them, URL shorteners basically squeeze a long URL into fewer characters to make it easier to share with others. With character limits in tweets, status updates and other modes of short form publishing, a shorter URL leaves more room to say what’s on your mind — and that’s why people use them.
This ‘shortener’ will enable users to make it faster and easier to share, post and email links. Google have built this on their global infrastructure to offer the following benefits:

• Stability: Google’s scalable, multi-datacenter infrastructure provides great uptime and a reliable service to their users
• Security: As they do with web search, shortened URLs are automatically checked to detect sites that may be malicious and warn users when the short URL resolves to such sites.
• Speed: Google like promoting fast products and they have to ensure this service is quick. They will continue to iterate and improve the speed of Google Url Shortener.

Google URL shortener is not a stand-alone service; you can’t use it to shorten links directly. Currently, Google URL Shortener is only available from the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner. If the service proves useful, Google may eventually make it available for a wider audience in the future.