how-to-guides

How to Shorten a Google Maps Link (6 Methods for 2026)

Shorten a Google Maps link the right way. Built-in maps.app.goo.gl, manual trimming, branded short URLs, and QR codes for print - all in under a minute.

Team U2L • 18 min read

The Google Maps link you just copied is 400 characters of coordinates, place IDs, session strings, and URL-encoded plus signs. Text it to someone and it wraps five lines. Paste it into an event invite and it eats the whole description. Read it out loud on a podcast and you sound like a modem.

You wanted a link. What you got is a paragraph.

There is a shorter version of that same map, and Google actually gives it to you for free if you know where to click. There is also a much better version - one that fits on a business card, tracks how many people opened it, and lets you swap the destination without reprinting anything. Below are six methods to shorten a Google Maps link, ranked from "zero effort, works right now" to "actual branded infrastructure for a real business."

The fastest way to shorten a Google Maps link is to tap the Share button in the Google Maps app or click Share on the desktop site - Google returns a short maps.app.goo.gl link automatically. For a branded, trackable version, paste that link into a URL shortener like U2L AI at u2l.ai and get a custom short URL with click analytics. No login required.

Table of Contents

Why Google Maps URLs Are So Ridiculously Long

Google Maps URLs are long because they encode almost every detail of what you were looking at when you hit Share: the place name, the exact latitude and longitude to seven decimal places, the zoom level, the map tilt, the layer stack (traffic, transit, satellite), the entity ID from Google's Places database, and a session string that connects the link back to your search context.

Here is a real example of a link to a small coffee shop:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Blue+Bottle+Coffee/@37.7847589,-122.4074321,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x8085808bcd7c9c3f:0xf9c7b3a2e4d8e5a2!8m2!3d37.7847547!4d-122.4048572!16s%2Fg%2F1tzy8vhq

That URL is 236 characters. The parts that actually matter are the place name and the coordinates. Everything after !3m1 is Google's internal map state - a compressed record of your view, the entity ID for the Places listing, and a data pipeline hint. It works. It also looks like ransomware.

The short version of that same link, produced by Google's own share flow, is around 25 characters. That is a 90 percent size cut with zero loss of function. And once you get the map short link, you can shorten it further, brand it, track it, or wrap a QR around it - each of the methods below covers a different one of those extensions.

Method 1: Use Google's Built-In Share Button

Google Maps has a built-in link shortener. It is the first thing you should try, because it costs nothing, works on every device, and Google will never break the redirect on its own domain.

Step 1: Find your location

Open Google Maps on the app or at maps.google.com. Search for the address, business name, or coordinates. Tap or click the result so the info card opens at the bottom (mobile) or on the left side (desktop). You should see the name of the place, a photo, hours, and a row of buttons that includes "Share."

Step 2: Tap Share

On the mobile app, tap the Share icon in the row of action buttons. On desktop, click the Share button next to Directions and Save. A share sheet pops up.

The share sheet defaults to a short link that looks like https://maps.app.goo.gl/AbCdEfGh1234. On some older Google Maps interfaces you may still see a "Short URL" checkbox - tick it. On the current version it is on by default.

Hit Copy Link. That is your short URL. Paste it into a text, email, or DM. It will resolve to the exact same map, marker, and zoom level you were looking at when you tapped Share.

Step 4: Test it before you share it widely

Before you print this link on 500 flyers, click it from a different browser or phone. Make sure it lands on the right place, opens in the Google Maps app on mobile (that is Google's default behavior for maps.app.goo.gl), and shows the correct info card. Ninety-nine percent of the time it will. The one percent involves places with multiple locations - always confirm.

The tradeoff with maps.app.goo.gl is that it is opaque. Your recipient cannot tell where the link goes until they click. That is fine for casual sharing between friends. It is not fine if you are a business trying to look professional, or if you want to know how many people actually opened your link. For those cases, keep reading.

Method 2: Trim the URL Manually With Coordinates

If you would rather not use Google's shortener at all - maybe you want a link that works when Google's link service is having a bad day, or you want a URL your recipient can visually parse - you can build one from scratch using coordinates.

The universal Google Maps URL pattern is:

https://www.google.com/maps?q=LAT,LNG

For the Blue Bottle example above, that becomes:

https://www.google.com/maps?q=37.7847589,-122.4074321

That is 55 characters instead of 236. It opens the location on any device, drops a pin at the coordinates, and works whether or not Google's short-link service is reachable. For a named place, you can also use:

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Blue+Bottle+Coffee+Mint+Plaza

That is human-readable, but it depends on Google's search resolving your query the same way it did for you - not always guaranteed if there are multiple locations of the same business. Coordinates are safer.

To grab coordinates on desktop, right-click any spot on the map. The first item in the context menu is the lat/long pair. Click it and it copies to your clipboard. On mobile, long-press a location - the info card at the bottom shows the coordinates under the place name.

This is a good option for developers, engineers embedding location links in APIs, and anyone who wants a link that visibly says "this is a map to a specific coordinate" without depending on Google's URL infrastructure. It is a heavier lift than method 1 for a single link, but scales better if you are generating hundreds of them programmatically.

Method 3: Shorten With a URL Shortener

Google's maps.app.goo.gl is short. It is not memorable, not brandable, not trackable, and not editable. If any of those matter, you want a proper URL shortener sitting on top of the map link.

Here is the workflow with U2L AI's URL shortener:

  1. Get either the raw Google Maps URL or the shortened maps.app.goo.gl version (method 1). Both work as inputs.
  2. Go to u2l.ai - no login required for the basic version.
  3. Paste the Google Maps link in the box.
  4. Optionally set a custom alias. Instead of a random six-character slug, type something like hq-cafe, wedding-venue, or pickup-location.
  5. Hit Shorten. Copy the result. That is your short URL, something like u2l.ai/hq-cafe.

The result is 14 characters. It is memorable. It is safe to say out loud. And the moment you create a free account, you get analytics on every click - country, device, browser, and clicks over time. If you print that link on a poster for an event, you can see how many people typed it in versus how many QR-scanned it (see method 5), and which cities they came from.

There is another benefit that only shows up later: you can change where the short link goes. If your venue moves, or you swap from Blue Bottle to a bigger space next door, you update the destination in the dashboard and every existing share, every printed handout, every emailed invitation now points at the new place. The Google Maps maps.app.goo.gl link is locked to the map you shared originally. A U2L AI short link is not. If you have never shortened a URL before, that walkthrough covers the same steps with a general-purpose destination.

For a business, maps.app.goo.gl/AbCdEfGh is a step down from your own domain. A branded short link like yourbrand.co/find-us reads as trustworthy, matches your brand, and tends to earn a meaningfully higher click-through rate than a generic short link - branded-link studies commonly put the lift at roughly a third.

To set this up:

  1. Buy a short domain. Something like .co, .link, .io, or .to works well - the idea is that a short domain plus a short slug stays visually short. If your name is Miller Real Estate, mllr.co/tour is 12 characters and unmistakably yours.
  2. Connect it to U2L AI in your dashboard. SSL certificates auto-provision through Cloudflare - no manual OpenSSL work, no annual renewals to remember.
  3. Route your map links through the branded domain going forward.

Now every mllr.co/tour you print on a yard sign points at the current property listing on Google Maps, and you can flip it to the next listing next week without changing the sign. We break down the trust-and-CTR side of this more in our branded links explainer, and the DNS setup steps live in the custom domain guide.

Businesses that print addresses on physical assets - real estate, event venues, restaurants, mobile services, food trucks - get the biggest lift from this. Your customer sees a link that looks like it belongs to you, not a random alphanumeric string that could belong to anyone.

Method 5: Turn It Into a QR Code for Print

If your Google Maps link is going on anything physical - a business card, a menu, a wedding invitation, a for-sale sign, a food truck window - a QR code beats a written URL every time. Nobody types out maps.app.goo.gl/AbCdEfGh from a business card. They scan it in one second, or they toss the card in a drawer.

Every short link you create on U2L AI comes with a matching QR code automatically. You do not need a separate QR generator. Create the short link (method 3), click the QR tab, and download - SVG for print, PNG for screens. Anyone who scans it with their phone camera lands on your Google Maps location instantly.

The killer feature here is the dynamic-link angle. Print a QR pointing at a specific map, and if you later change locations, you swap the destination in the dashboard. The printed QR keeps working. Compare that with printing a static QR that encodes the raw map URL - if anything changes, you reprint every card, sign, and menu. That difference is exactly why we recommend dynamic QR codes over static ones for anything you print more than 10 copies of.

Wedding invitations are a favorite use case here. Print a small QR code next to the venue address. Guests scan and get turn-by-turn directions to the exact spot. If the reception venue changes at the last minute (it happens), you update the destination once. Same QR. Same invitations. No stress. If you have never made a QR code for a link, the full walkthrough there takes about 30 seconds.

Method 6: Plus Codes for Places Without an Address

Some places do not have a street address. A trailhead, a friend's beach house, an outdoor wedding site, a food truck's Tuesday-night parking spot. For those, Google's Plus Codes are a shortening method all their own.

A Plus Code is a short letter-and-number sequence that identifies any location on Earth to within about 14 by 14 meters. Blue Bottle Coffee's Plus Code is QJVP+3M San Francisco - eight characters plus a city name. You can generate one by right-clicking any spot in Google Maps on desktop and clicking the coordinates - the Plus Code appears in the info panel. On mobile, tap and hold a location, then look at the "Plus Code" line under the address.

Once you have a Plus Code, you have three options:

  • Share it as text. "Meet me at QJVP+3M San Francisco." Anyone can paste that into Google Maps and get the exact spot.
  • Wrap it in a Maps URL. https://www.google.com/maps?q=QJVP+3M+San+Francisco is a shareable clickable link at 55 characters.
  • Run that URL through a shortener (method 3) for a branded, trackable version.

Plus Codes are the answer for locations that street addresses can't describe. Rural properties. Camping meetups. Farmers' market stalls that move each week. Combined with a shortener, they give you a link that is both short and precise.

Special Cases: Directions, Embeds, and My Maps

Not every Maps URL is a simple "here is a pin." A few variants show up often enough to be worth calling out.

Directions links. These have both a start and an end point:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&origin=Union+Square,+San+Francisco&destination=Blue+Bottle+Coffee

Google's share button gives you a maps.app.goo.gl short version for these too. Or paste the long form into a shortener and get a branded slug like u2l.ai/route-to-hq. Directions links are gold for real estate agents ("directions from downtown to the open house"), delivery routes, and event pickup instructions.

Embed links. These are for putting a map inside a web page as an interactive iframe, and they are a different beast entirely. If you're building a website, you want an embed link (the pb= iframe URL), which comes from clicking "Embed a map" in the Share panel. Embed links are not really "shortened" - they are pasted as HTML - but you can shorten the underlying place URL and then wrap that shorter version around the embed if you need to point at a canonical link somewhere in the page.

My Maps links. Google My Maps (a separate product for custom drawn maps and layered pins) generates its own URL format. Those look like https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1AbCdEfGhIj.... They are long, they are ugly, and they are shortener-friendly. Paste them into U2L AI the same way you would any other URL and get a memorable short version like u2l.ai/festival-map that you can print on program handouts.

Street View links. Street View share URLs contain the pano ID and camera angle, which makes them enormous. The maps.app.goo.gl share works. So does wrapping the long form in a shortener for a branded version.

The pattern across all of these: whatever Google gives you, a URL shortener can make shorter, memorable, and trackable. The underlying map URL never has to be beautiful - it just has to work when the browser fetches it after the redirect.

When to Use Which Method

The right method depends on where the link is going.

Situation Best method
Quick DM to a friend Method 1 (built-in maps.app.goo.gl)
Podcast, radio, video ad Method 4 (branded short link, easy to say out loud)
Business card, flyer, sign Method 5 (QR code from a dynamic short link)
Wedding invitation Method 5 (QR that you can update if the venue moves)
Real estate listing Method 4 + Method 5 (branded link on the listing, QR on the yard sign)
Developer API response Method 2 (coordinate URL, no third-party dependency)
Trailhead, festival stall, no street address Method 6 (Plus Code, then shortener)
Multi-channel marketing campaign Method 3 or 4 with click analytics

For anything you print or say out loud, the ceiling of usefulness comes from methods 3 through 5. Google's own short link works, but the branded version outperforms it on trust, memorability, and every metric you can attribute back to a channel.

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Google Maps, find the location, and tap Share. Google generates a short link automatically in the format maps.app.goo.gl/AbCdEfGh and puts it in your clipboard when you tap Copy Link. For a branded, trackable version, paste that link into a URL shortener like U2L AI and get a custom short URL with click analytics.

Google Maps URLs encode the place name, exact coordinates, zoom level, map tilt, active layers, Places entity ID, and a session string that reflects your search context. Most of that data is not needed by the map when someone opens the link - it is just Google preserving state. The shortened version keeps only what is needed to load the same view.

Is maps.app.goo.gl a real Google domain?

Yes. maps.app.goo.gl is Google's official short-link service for Google Maps, and every share generated from the Google Maps app or desktop site uses it. It replaced the older goo.gl/maps format after Google's general-purpose URL shortener shut down. Links on maps.app.goo.gl are safe and permanent as long as Google runs the service.

Not through Google itself - maps.app.goo.gl links are always random alphanumeric strings. To get a custom link like u2l.ai/find-us, run the map URL through a URL shortener that supports custom aliases. U2L AI lets you pick your own slug for free with no login required.

Yes. Both Google's maps.app.goo.gl short links and third-party shortener links redirect to the standard Google Maps URL, which every modern browser and the Google Maps app on iOS and Android know how to open. On mobile, tapping the link usually opens the native Google Maps app directly.

Only if you use a third-party shortener that provides analytics. maps.app.goo.gl gives you no click data. Paste the map link into a shortener like U2L AI and you get country, device, browser, referrer, and clicks-over-time on every short URL. That is how you find out which ad, poster, or channel actually drove foot traffic.

How do I make a QR code for a Google Maps location?

The fastest way is to shorten the map link with U2L AI, then click the QR tab on the resulting short link - the matching QR code downloads instantly, no separate tool needed. Because it points at a dynamic short link, you can change the map destination later without reprinting the QR. Great for menus, wedding invitations, and real estate signs.

Not with maps.app.goo.gl - Google's short links are permanently bound to the map you shared. But if you use a URL shortener like U2L AI, you can update the destination anytime in the dashboard and every existing share, print piece, and QR code now points to the new location. This is the killer feature for anyone with printed marketing materials.

A share link opens Google Maps for the recipient in their browser or app. An embed link is HTML iframe code that displays an interactive Google Map inside a web page you own. Share links are for sending to people; embed links are for building into websites. Both come from the same Share panel in Google Maps.

Pick the Method That Fits the Channel

Shortening a Google Maps link is not a one-tool problem. Google's Share button handles the casual case in three taps. A URL shortener like U2L AI turns that into something you can brand, track, and update. A matching QR code turns it into something you can print. Plus Codes make it work for places without an address.

For most people, the sweet spot is method 3: use Google's share to get the short link, then run it through U2L AI for a memorable custom slug and click analytics. It takes under 30 seconds and unlocks every downstream capability - branding, QR codes, editable destinations - the moment you decide you need them.

Ready to try it? Create a free U2L AI account and shorten your first Google Maps link with click analytics baked in. No credit card, no trial. If you want the full feature list before you sign up, see everything U2L AI includes.

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