Google has announced a new URL shortcut that will only link to official Google products and services: g.co. The search giant acquired the domain name from.CO Internet SAS. The company will roll out g.co as its official URL shortcut for Google websites in the near future.

Google says it will only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google. In other words, only Mountain View can create g.co shortcuts. This means users will know what to expect when they click a g.co link: a Google product or a Google service.

At the same time, Google has promised that goo.gl, the company's fast URL shortening service, will not be affected by the g.co launch. It will continue to be Google's public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web.

Google first introduced goo.gl in December 2009 as part of Google Toolbar and Feedburner, which it acquired in June 2007. Since the initial release, the technology was integrated into many other Google products, and eventually went public in late September 2010. Then in January 2011, Google released an API that allows developers to use goo.gl in their own applications.

Google understood the need for a better URL shortening service so it built one. Once the company realized that there was third-party demand for goo.gl, it decided to open it up for everyone to use. Unfortunately, this meant that goo.gl was no longer for just Google's own official links. That's probably why Google decided to buy g.co.