Links have been around since the advent of the internet, and they’re so common and familiar that we almost don’t actively think about them anymore. They are just a natural, intuitive part of being online.
A few years ago, however, links evolved to do and handle more — namely, various companies introduced “deep links” — a way for links to interact with mobile applications, app stores, and a whole lot more.
It was an elegant way to further the potential of a simple click.
Not too long after, Google’s Firebase threw their hat into the ring, creating their own, branded version of deep links, called “dynamic links.”
The idea was similar, but the execution was on a much larger scale. And a lot of improvements and enhancements were made to deep links.
But 9 years later, it’s coming to an end — on August 25th.
Here’s everything you need to know.
What is going to happen, exactly?
Your dynamic links will stop working on August 25th. In order to avoid losing them, you need to migrate to a new service
Google cites difficulties maintaining dynamic links and the desire to turn their focus to entirely new projects as the reason for deprecating the service.
You can read the full FAQ and statement here.
What about our links?
If you’re using Short.io, there’s two things to keep in mind:
- If you’re using a Google domain
You’ll need to connect your own, non-Google domain and migrate your links using an external service like Short.io. Please keep in mind that you’ll need to create new links, as the old ones will be lost.
- If you’re using a custom domain
If you’re already using a custom domain, you can migrate your domains to short.io and your links will remain active.
The good news is that in both these instances, getting your links into Short.io is as easy as exporting them from Firebase and importing them to our platform. Once there, you won’t have to worry about any deprecations. They’ll work the exact same way as they did on Firebase!
Ten years with no deprecations
Short.io has now been on the market for more than 10 years, and in that time, we’ve been committed to providing the best service possible.
A big part of that is adding new functionalities.
But equally, that means maintaining them.
In all our time as a link shortening platform, we haven’t deprecated a single feature. For a large-scale platform like Firebase, it’s understandable that they might want to turn their resources elsewhere.
For us, though, that’s not a concern.
In fact, we’re already working on a mobile iOS SDK to simplify your mobile application integrations with our system. This will help you migrate your links to Short.io, too.
Our promise is this — safe, consistently efficient, persistent set-it-and-forget-it links that you can be sure will last you a lifetime.
And with a little preparation, you can keep your links future-proof and risk free.
