Shortened URLs Passing Link Equity?
-
Hi everyone,
I was going through a competitor's backlinks, and I noticed they had a number of links from ow.ly and bit.ly that according to Open Site Explorer were passing link equity with PA in the 40 and DA in the 90s.
How does that happen? And, how can I duplicate that? I thought those services just shortened your URLs for Twitter feeds mostly, and Twitter no-followed everything.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide!
- Ruben
-
If they went to burner pages, then I would understand it a little better. However, when I click on the shorten link, it goes to his blog page on his actual site; not a microsite.
It's like the shorten link redirects to itself, but is passing equity. And, I can't figure out where the shortened link is actually posted it.
It's not in the source code of the actual blog page. Not sure how to find the origin of it.
- Rube
-
It could be either. I've seen bit.ly pop up in Ahrefs, which is how we found that ugly link scheme, but most of the time they list the site at the beginning of the chain.
-
Quick follow-up question: Let's say a perfectly reputable site like CNN wants to link to a piece of my content on my site, but rather than use the standard URL, they use a shortened link from bit.ly.
If I run that through a backlink checker tool, then will it say I have a link from CNN? From Bit.ly? Or Both?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
"How can we duplicate that?"
It really depends on how those shortened links are being used, and I'd say that mostly you don't want to go there. I've seen spammers use shortened links as a way to mask their paid links and link networks... they build a bunch of burner pages on freebie sites like Weebly, then stuff them full of links to the bit.ly URLs, which then 301 (and pass equity) to the main site. So if you took that bit.ly link and ran that through a backlink checker like Ahrefs, it would have a ton of links pointing at it. When the freebie services catch on and shut them down, they just build new ones, repeat the whole process. It was a big problem with Patch for awhile. It's the SEO equivalent of money laundering. The Payday update seemed to kill most of it, though.
To Eric's point though, a lot of social networks use link shorteners, so pop one of them into your backlink tool and see where they're leading back to.
-
Ruben,
Most URL shorteners use 301 permanent redirects, and some of those 301s aren't actually nofollow links. It depends on where the shortened URL appears. While Twitter links are typically nofollow links, there are sites where they aren't. For example, did you know that the full URL, when shared in LinkedIN in the description is not a nofollow link? It's shortened, but it's not nofollow.
From what we can tell, Google really does use social as a ranking signal, and if they can see that real traffic is going via social media to a URL, then it will rank well, even if it has a nofollow tag on it. What you're seeing is the power of social media to rank something and to link to something--which you should be doing if you want to rank as well as your competitors' sites.
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
-
How are links in ads perceived ?
Hi, Please can someone remind me how links in display ads are perceived by G ? A client of mine has purchased a display campaign with an industry related on-line publication that has lead to a massive spike in reported back links in Google Search Console (the new GWT). Does Google automatically identify these as ads (due to tracker codes etc) rather than paid backlinks or should they, like links in press releases, be no-followed or other advice ? Cheers Dan
Link Building | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Link building
I keep sending personal emails to website asking for a link form them but every one says no how do other website get so many links to there website whats the best software to use
Link Building | | homesandindustrial0 -
Link Campaign
I need to put together a link campaign, but am a new SEO in training. Any recommendations on how to start, even if it's just read certain articles or watch certain videos? Your help is appreciated!
Link Building | | cbeuoy0 -
Link Analysis shows no external sites linking to me?
Hi All, I hope you can help. Link Analysis shows no external sites linking to me? but I know for a fact there are. Why is this? I have submitted my site to a few local directories and can see my site is on their site but when I run a Link Analysis it shows that I have no links. Does anyone know why this is? Many thanks, Aidan My site is http://www.theethicalsilkco.com/
Link Building | | aidanlawlor0 -
Old Site not Passing Along Links?
Recently, we created a new website for a client, and put it on a new domain. We put a 301 redirect site-wide on the old site. The 301 is working correctly, and any visit to the old site is now going to the new one. So, from a functionality standpoint, we're looking good. However, looking at the domain authority of the sites, it doesn't seem that the old links are passing value to the new site. The old site had 43 linking root domains, and a domain authority of 30, compared to the new site with 16 linking root domains and an authority of 22. If I understand correctly, the links should be viewed as pointing to the new site and passing link juice to the new one, correct? Is there a reason why this may be happening that I should be looking into? Any thoughts or advice on this one would be appreciated. Thanks guys!
Link Building | | DeliaAssociates0 -
Different Link Titles Linking to the same page
So I'm doing a lot of link building but my question is how do search engines treat different link titles to the same page. For example, my main page is www.musillawfirm.com If I have 20 links from 20 sites linking to it as Melbourne FL DUI Lawyer and 20 more linking as Melbourne FL immigration Lawyer and More linking as Cocoa FL DUI lawyer etc... what happens? Do the search engines just rank me higher for all the terms or would it be better to always just link to separate landing pages? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | musillawfirm0