No More Multiple URLs for GooglePages

What is the sound of an unannounced feature going away?

Soon after the GooglePages service had been launched, two types of “alternate” URLs were discovered for published GooglePages. First, each username.googlepages.com page was mirrored as username.pagetastic.com. The second type of alternate URLs could be constructed by inserting any number of periods within username, e.g., user.name.googlepages.com was the same as username.googlepages.com.

URLs of the second type no longer work. This is not a big deal, since the only people affected are those who have used the alternate forms, such as user.name.googlepages.com, in the actual links. This feature, however, was convenient in some cases, e.g., for breaking up long.googlepage.names.

Which brings me back to the question that started the post: will Google remove some of the other unannounced features from GooglePages or other Google services? Technically, this is not unexpected for “beta” services, but so far most of the “beta” features that users found helpful were kept intact or improved, not removed.

One possible reason for changing this particular feature is that, as many people pointed out, it technically violated Google’s own policy against creating many copies of a website with identical content, but under different URLs. So one can hope that other useful hacks developed for GooglePages will remain intact and eventually will be officially supported. But until GooglePages graduate from “beta”, perhaps, it is a good idea to periodically check if pages that make use of other unannounced features of GooglePages and Google Page Creator continue to work properly.