Google Using TinyURL for Shortening URLs in SMS Search

When you perform a web search on mobile phone using Google SMS, the SMS text message you get back from Google has two parts - web search results and a short URL that redirects to the relevant Google search page.

For instance, Google sent an SMS message with this short URL - m.google.com/u/xva9Ot - for a search query like “Global Warming.”

Now if we to use the services of TinyURL for converting that same Google page into a shorter URL, the resulting address would be something like this - tinyurl.com/6xbo7q.

Noticed a similarity ? The redirection code generated by TinyURL (6xbo7q) and Google SMS search (xva90t) have six characters each.

Since this can just be a coincidence, let’s look at the HTTP Response generated by Google that clearly says “tinyurl_server.”

google-server-response

Google is either using TinyURL service for generating short URLs or there’s another possibility - they may have developed something similar in-house but gave it the same name “tinyurl.”

Related: Google Should Consider Decoding TinyURLs

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

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