It was launched in December 2009, initially used for Google Toolbar and Feedburner.

[6] The user could access a list of URLs that had been shortened in the past after logging in to their Google Account.

Real-time analytics data, including traffic over time, top referrers, and visitor profiles was recorded.

For security, Google added automatic spam system detection based on the same type of filtering technology used in Gmail.

Google added an interstitial page to warn users about this on August 23, 2024.