Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Does Bitly hurt your SEO?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does Bitly hurt your SEO?

    Technical SEO
    5
    9
    11586
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • StreetwiseReports
      StreetwiseReports last edited by

      I often use bit.ly or Google URL shortener in links when other websites post my articles so I can track clicks. However, I am thinking this may HURT my SEO given that it is taking away a back link to my website. Is that logic correct ?

      If so, what is a good way to be able to track clicks if a website posts your article without jeopardizing the SEO value?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • zeepartner
        zeepartner @brandonjschwartz last edited by

        the bots can easily identify a url shortener, as this performs a normal 301 redirect

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • StreetwiseReports
          StreetwiseReports @brandonjschwartz last edited by

          Thanks, but I am wondering how this is possible, unless the search bots could identify that it is a link shortener

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • brandonjschwartz
            brandonjschwartz @zeepartner last edited by

            You're probably right about the estimate. I haven't done any testing on it or the impact of redirects in general personally, but have seen some folks suggest as high as 99% but others much lower.

            StreetwiseReports zeepartner 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • zeepartner
              zeepartner @StreetwiseReports last edited by

              no, i'm referring to Boomajoom's comment above "only 99% of the rank instead of the full value".

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • StreetwiseReports
                StreetwiseReports @zeepartner last edited by

                thanks, what do you mean 99%. do you mean that it's 99% less effective?

                zeepartner 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • zeepartner
                  zeepartner last edited by

                  no, it won't hurt your SEO, but you will get less out of it than by linking directly. how much of the link juice flows is unclear, but my estimate is that it's much lower than 99%.

                  StreetwiseReports brandonjschwartz 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Workaholic
                    Workaholic last edited by

                    I see a lot of people use bitly, but I personally prefer using goo.gl, it's a Google product and it pretty much gives you the same metrics than bitly.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • brandonjschwartz
                      brandonjschwartz last edited by

                      Slightly. Like any redirect, you lose some of the link value. However, Google has said that PageRank does flow through shortened URL's. It just might only be 99% of the rank instead of the full value.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Katarina-Borovska

                        SEO - New URL structure

                        Hi, Currently we have the following url structure for all pages, regardless of the hierarchy: domain.co.uk/page, such as domain/blog name. Can you, please confirm the following: 1. What is the benefit of organising the pages as a hierarchy, i.e. domain/features/feature-name or domain/industries/industry-name or domain/blog/blog name etc. 2. This will create too many 301s - what is Google's tolerance of redirects? Is it worth for us changing the url structure or would you only recommend to add breadcrumbs? Many thanks Katarina

                        Technical SEO | | Katarina-Borovska
                        1
                      • KempRugeLawGroup

                        Do quizzes hurt your site? Thin content?

                        We did a 10 question quiz awhile back relating to something we were sponsoring, and it had a decent response. However, considering quizzes just aren't that long, does that contribute to making the site's content thin? Obviously, it's not a major problem at the moment, but if we did more of them would this be an issue? If there's no real issue, I'd prefer not to no-index them, but I'd love some feedback to help make the decision. Thanks, Ruben

                        Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup
                        0
                      • tutarmi

                        Seo For Forum Sites

                        I have forum site.I've opened it 2 months ago.But there is a problem.Therefore my content is unique , my site's keyword ranking constantly changing..Sometimes my site's ranking drops from first 500.After came to 70s. I didn't make any off page seo to my site.What is the problem ?

                        Technical SEO | | tutarmi
                        0
                      • JarnoNijzing

                        Use of title tags on divs for SEO purposes

                        Hello community, I recently was asked by a client to analyze a website of a competitor. I did was he asked me to do but when I  looked at the source code of the website I found this code: I changed the exact words into something for privacy reasons, but I never looked at a code like this.
                        Using a div for an anchor I get but adding a title tag to the div? I never seen that before. Title tags on anchors, yes, using images in divs as background and then adding a title??? Does anyone have any experience with a code like this and if you do how does this impact rankings? Does it impact rankings at all and does anybody know of any correlation between the two? Looking forward for your responses. Regards Jarno

                        Technical SEO | | JarnoNijzing
                        0
                      • manutx

                        SEO for User Authenticated Content

                        Hi Everyone - I have a potential client who is seeking SEO for a site that contains about 95% of content only accessible through user authentication . Does anyone have tips for getting this indexed without having to open it up to the public? I was considering adding "snippets" into the robots.txt or creating an additional page with snippets linking to the login page. I'd appreciate any thoughts! Thanks!

                        Technical SEO | | manutx
                        0
                      • ElmarReizen

                        Does it hurt to have a dynamic counter in your page title?

                        Currently we work with page titles which display the number of products we have as a counter. This number is highly volatile and can change every day, so that our page title changes all the time. We did this to improve user experience, meet expectations and improve click through rates. Question is whether this can hurt our rankings and if someone has experimented with this or has experience with this?

                        Technical SEO | | ElmarReizen
                        0
                      • stephen_reply

                        Changing DNS -- SEO implications?

                        Hey Moz, We're migrating an old site on an old server over to a new server/DNS. The plan is to keep the same URL structure and reuse our existing URL's. As long as we make minimal changes to each page's content, we should be able to update our DNS entry and get all the pages recreated and assigned to their correct URLs without any reduction in SEO rankings. Is this correct? This site gets a lot of organic traffic and ranks highly on some challenging keywords, so it's key that we retain our rankings as much as possible. I've read that it's wise to lower the DNS time-to-live to one hour, about a day before the move, to help Google crawl the DNS a little quicker. Are there any other recommendations you guys can offer or past experiences?

                        Technical SEO | | stephen_reply
                        0
                      • EvergladesDirect

                        200 Redirects for SEO instead of 301

                        We are working with a company on re-platforming our website.  On a call yesterday they outlined a strategy to use 200 redirects for our top keywords instead of 301s.  I am not familiar with this type of redirect and was wondering if anyone could provide some more insight.

                        Technical SEO | | EvergladesDirect
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.