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All URL shorteners created equal? Not!

by PhilipSEO
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
We all use URL shorteners these days, but what are their implications for SEO? Do they pass link juice? What extra capabilities do they offer?

The best URL shorteners, like tinyurl.com and bit.ly, use a 301 redirect (which passes most of the link juice if the link is "dofollow") and also provide tracking.

For a detailed comparison of the most popular shorteners, I have found this article helpful:
URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?

Make sure you are using the right one!
#created #equal #shorteners #url
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    PhilipSEO, I have had a question swirling around my head the
    last few days.

    What is "seen" as the referring page in respect to using bit.ly?
    Does it look like the referring page is bit.ly or the site the link is on?

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author PhilipSEO
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      PhilipSEO, I have had a question swirling around my head the
      last few days.

      What is "seen" as the referring page in respect to using bit.ly?
      Does it look like the referring page is bit.ly or the site the link is on?

      Paul
      Thanks, Paul, for asking this: I wasn't sure of the answer myself, but I have now tested it. And here are the results:

      1. 301-based URL shortener without preview: the original site (not the URL shortening site) shows up as referrer in Google Analytics

      2. 301-based URL shortener with preview: the URL-shortening site shows up as referrer in Google Analytics (not the original site)

      I hope this is of interest!
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Originally Posted by PhilipSEO View Post

        Thanks, Paul, for asking this: I wasn't sure of the answer myself, but I have now tested it. And here are the results:

        1. 301-based URL shortener without preview: the original site (not the URL shortening site) shows up as referrer in Google Analytics

        2. 301-based URL shortener with preview: the URL-shortening site shows up as referrer in Google Analytics (not the original site)

        I hope this is of interest!
        Yes that is of interest.

        I was thinking the same thing on the 301 redirect. This is actually a very good
        thread that morphed into some 301 info. I thought maybe on some basis, the
        301 redirect would show, but then how could it, logically speaking. There would
        be no page load to put in any history. I thought maybe clever google would
        see it and detect something from it, just what I could not come up with. I wondered
        how they saw the incoming links.

        The preview makes a little sense, but one would have to go past the preview, right?
        I've used the once-popular hello.to/keyword in that past and now they put that
        in an iframe or frame, so your site looks like the short url. hello.to is one of the
        coolest looking url "changers." I just checked one I made 10 years ago and it
        still works!

        Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Charlie299
    ^Yeah I'm wondering the same thing. And I always use bit.ly so I guess I'm using the right stuff
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  • Profile picture of the author pbarnhart
    I was one of the developers of BudURL (I no longer have any relationship with the company BTW) - and had some early conversations with the creator of Pretty Links. And no, there is a serious misunderstanding of how web servers, browsers, and corporate proxies see redirects.

    Which is why both BudURL and Pretty Links offer a 307 Redirect.

    And I have seen first-hand Googlebot encountering a 301 and never revisiting that URL again.

    See: The anatomy of a server sided redirect: 301, 302 and 307 illuminated SEO wise and BudURL University: 307 Redirects | Power to Grow
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    • Profile picture of the author PhilipSEO
      Originally Posted by pbarnhart View Post

      And I have seen first-hand Googlebot encountering a 301 and never revisiting that URL again.
      @pbarnhart Thank you for this information and for the references (yet to be checked out). But could you please elaborate on your experience with this (as well as on when this took place)? It would seem to be silly of Google et al. to ignore shortened URLs for discovery purposes, seeing how popular they have become (not least because of Twitter and such).

      @Paul and Charlie, regarding whether the shorteres show up as referring URLs, I am not sure myself. I am testing this now and will report the results tomorrow!
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  • Profile picture of the author deloriagod
    Nice post Philip. I always assumed they were all fairly equal. Glad I've only been using bit.ly
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  • Profile picture of the author MemberWing
    Originally Posted by PhilipSEO View Post

    We all use URL shorteners these days, but what are their implications for SEO? Do they pass link juice? What extra capabilities do they offer?

    The best URL shorteners, like tinyurl.com and bit.ly, use a 301 redirect (which passes most of the link juice if the link is "dofollow") and also provide tracking.

    For a detailed comparison of the most popular shorteners, I have found this article helpful:
    URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?

    Make sure you are using the right one!
    Who needs ugly: .../rUoI3x - type URLs?
    It's always struggle to type them (some magazines use them) and they never give a hint on what link is about unless it comes with description nearby.
    I am using the right shortener - I registered my own pretty lovely domain: toprate.org and put all my shortened links in it with the names i want, with redirects I need and on my terms.
    I crafted tiny PHP script on it to handle everything.
    It's not the shortest domain name in the world but i love it.
    There are plenty of lovely short domains available for creative "own" URL shorteners.

    Gleb
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by MemberWing View Post

      Who needs ugly: .../rUoI3x - type URLs?
      It's always struggle to type them (some magazines use them) and they never give a hint on what link is about unless it comes with description nearby.
      I am using the right shortener - I registered my own pretty lovely domain: toprate.org and put all my shortened links in it with the names i want, with redirects I need and on my terms.
      I crafted tiny PHP script on it to handle everything.
      It's not the shortest domain name in the world but i love it.
      There are plenty of lovely short domains available for creative "own" URL shorteners.

      Gleb
      Well, they make it very easy to copy and paste.....

      I use them for twitter, which when using a canonical blog (and you should) like
      blogspot, the url gets very, very long depending on the title. does not fit
      in twitter along with a by-line in 140 characters. The blog url alone has
      almost 50 characters, including the http bit.

      Even if you don't blog, your urls should look something like:
      http:// www. my domain .com/keyword-keyword-keyphrase . php
      Even some of those could get quite long. Not twitter friendly.

      Obviously, if you don't twitter, and blog or use long tail canonical urls,
      you have no need.

      I use it for something else at the moment, testing something, and that's why I
      am looking at getting to the root of what the history is on a redirect. If it is a 310
      redirect, I am assuming that the bit.ly would not show up in any history, but
      search engines might catch it as a middle man, so to speak. That's what I would
      like to find out.

      I heard twitter is creating their own and that may spell doom for bit.ly.
      Something of an auto-shortener.

      Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
      Originally Posted by MemberWing View Post

      Who needs ugly: .../rUoI3x - type URLs?
      bit.ly lets you rename them to whatever you want...
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
    I didn't even know people out there used non-301 redirect shorteners? really? News at 11, the earth is not flat

    Originally Posted by PhilipSEO View Post

    We all use URL shorteners these days, but what are their implications for SEO? Do they pass link juice? What extra capabilities do they offer?

    The best URL shorteners, like tinyurl.com and bit.ly, use a 301 redirect (which passes most of the link juice if the link is "dofollow") and also provide tracking.

    For a detailed comparison of the most popular shorteners, I have found this article helpful:
    URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?

    Make sure you are using the right one!
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  • Profile picture of the author Fenster
    301 redirects will not show up as the referrer - the original site will. So, if a user clicks on a bit.ly link on a twitter page, Twitter will show up as the referrer.

    Googlebot has no/little need to visit a 301 redirect again. 301s are permanent redirects. So, once Googlebot finds the destination URL, that is the page they will continue to visit. Now, I would expect (but haven't confirmed) that amply linked-to 301 URLs get visited from time-to-time just at a far lower frequency than the actual pages with content.
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  • Profile picture of the author mejohn
    Thanks for the info. I have never used those before, but may have need in the future.
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  • Profile picture of the author deepakg
    Originally Posted by PhilipSEO View Post

    We all use URL shorteners these days, but what are their implications for SEO? Do they pass link juice? What extra capabilities do they offer?

    The best URL shorteners, like tinyurl.com and bit.ly, use a 301 redirect (which passes most of the link juice if the link is "dofollow") and also provide tracking.

    For a detailed comparison of the most popular shorteners, I have found this article helpful:
    URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?

    Make sure you are using the right one!
    I am little confuse write now actually 301 redirect code passes complete value to redirect URL
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    • Profile picture of the author PhilipSEO
      Originally Posted by deepakg View Post

      I am little confuse write now actually 301 redirect code passes complete value to redirect URL
      No, this is incorrect. Google admitted earlier this year that 301 redirects degrade the link juice to some degree. Moreover, since the MayDay and Caffeine updates, 301s appear to further weaken the link juice passed, at least when the 301 is from one website to another.
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  • Profile picture of the author cutequotes
    i know that tinyURL works exactly as a 301 redirect so it pass the pr, however when you do 301 redirect you lose some link juice.

    still ranking affiliate links on google is not easy. i used to have few affiliate links on google 1st page, ibuild hundred back links to them and after a while they lost their positions. so for the long run it doesnt work, i spent lot of time on it just to understand that it is better to rank with your review page than your affiliate link
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