Bit.ly URLs. Are they SEO Friendly?
-
Are URL shorteners like Bit.ly considered 301 redirects? I was thinking about using them for some longer URL's in press releases but i didn't want to loose any link juice through the service.
Thanks for the info! - Kyle
-
Thank you again for your help, i did some more research and digging and found this: https://bitly.com/pages/help#i_0_1
-
might have to check out that mozbar ! I am surprised not for the first time I guess. I am trying to think how they efficiently make the 301 redirect. Of course php or something can redirect as a 301 silly me. It must be friday.
-
The only issue with link juice is the normal concern with any 301 redirect. Some link juice will be lost, and it will be amplified if multiple redirects are involved.
Try this link: http://mz.cm/vr5WDE
The above link is to this Q&A. Use your mozbar, examine Page Attributes and scroll to the bottom. Notice the bit.ly url is a 301 redirect to this URL. That's what bit.ly is, a 301 redirect service.
Do not automatically assume all services perform the redirect the same way. Always check before committing to any service.
-
Thank you for the response Ryan. So you don't see any issue (specifically with link juice) with using these shortener services to make longer URLs more manageable in off site press releases and articles?
-
Sorry, i accidentally posted this question three times somehow? As i mentioned on the other response, I use Google UTM link tracking to measure how successful articles and press releases are on other websites (linking back to my pages). Sometime these query based URLs get quite long and my client suggested trying bit.ly.
So i was trying to see if anyone had experience with using bit.ly and if they have seen the links pass link juice.
-
URL shorteners like Bit.ly are actually 301 redirects and work as such. You can enter in the URL then examine the page using the mozbar Page Attributes and see the 301 redirect take place.
-
The converted or shortened url as you say gets routed to the old url but I doubt very much if it is possible to 301 redirect this.
I say this because I know of only 2 ways to redirect (if there are others I would like to know !)-
htaccess - cant be modified on the fly and the resources to do this would not make this viable for shortening as we know it.
-
in the head of the webpage html a redirect can be a 301.
I suspect the shorteners are just launching a new url in the same window which matches a database value which gets set, so their domains hijack each request via a standard script check for a match against the database and simply redirect using the stored 'original long url'
I cant see this being a good idea for SEO purposes. Just make the press releases into nice titles which work with your CMS to get some long tail searches.
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Exclude URL Parameters?
Hello, I am new in SEO and I am trying to understand the basics in URL parameters. Let’s assume that I have an ecommerce site with Categories (Category1, Category2) Views (listview=1, listview=2) Orders (OrderBy=1, OrderBy=2) Pages (pg=1, pg=2) Why should I add google to index pages with different views and Listing orders? What is the benefit for the site to have the same content with different order? I am not sure but maybe only need pages in order to google to “travel” between the pages? For example: www.mydomain.com/books/pg=1 www.mydomain.com/books/?order=date www.mydomain.com/books/?listview =1 The products in pages (pg) will always include products in order and listview? Why should google index again the content? Furthermore, from the last time that google index the pg=1 the products has changed. Thank you in advanced
Technical SEO | | ArisGast0 -
Friendly URLs for MultiLingual Site
Hi, We have a multilingual website with both latin and non-latin characters, We are working on creating a friendly URL structure for the site. For the Latin languages can we use translated version of the URLs within the language folders? For example - www.site/cars www.site/fr/voitures www.site/es/autos
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Are Collapsible DIV's SEO-Friendly?
When I have a long article about a single topic with sub-topics I can make it user friendlier when I limit the text and hide text just showing the next headlines, by using expandable-collapsible div's. My doubt is if Google is really able to read onclick textlinks (with javaScript) or if it could be "seen" as hidden text? I think I read in the SEOmoz Users Guide, that all javaScript "manipulated" contend will not be crawled. So from SEOmoz's Point of View I should better make use of old school named anchors and a side-navigation to jump to the sub-topics? (I had a similar question in my post before, but I did not use the perfect terms to describe what I really wanted. Also my text is not too long (<1000 Words) that I should use pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev" attributes.) THANKS for every answer 🙂
Technical SEO | | inlinear0 -
Canonical URL
I previously set the canonical Url in google web masters to the non www version, when I check my on page opt, it tells me that I have a critical issue with this. Should I change it in google web masters back to the www version? if so is there the possibility of negative results? Or is there a better way to deal with this? Note, I have inbound links pointing to both types.
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Shorter URLs
Hi Is there a real value in having the keywords in the URL structure? we could use the URL: Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/supertrader.html Or instead have the CMS create the shorter version mybrand.com/supertrader.html and just optimize this page for the keyword 'supertrader ipad software'
Technical SEO | | FXDD1 -
Entry based content and SEO
My E-commerce team is implementing functionality that allows us to display different content based on what channel and even what keyword the customers used to reach our page. This is of course a move that we believe will strengthen our conversion rates, but how will this effect our organic search listings? Do you guys have any examples of how this could affect us, and are there any technology pitfalls that we absolutely need to know about?
Technical SEO | | GEMoney_No0 -
URL Length
What is the ideal length for an item's URL. Theirs a few different options. A) www.mydomain.com/item-name B) www.mydomain.com/category-name/product-name C) www.mydomain.com/category-name/sub-category-name/product-name Please choose A, B, or C and explain why you made that decision. Looking forward to the responses.
Technical SEO | | Romancing0