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
-
Use existing page with bad URL or brand new URL?
Hello, We will be updating an existing page with more helpful information with the goal of reaching more potential customers through SEO and also attaching a SEM campaign to the specific landing page. The current URL of the page scores 25 on Page Authority, and has 2 links to it from blog articles (PA 35, 31). The current content needs to be rewritten to be more helpful and also needs some additional information. The downsides are that it has an "bad" URL- no target keyword and uses underscores. Which of the following choices would you make? 1. Update this old "bad" URL with new content. Benefit from the existing PA. -or- 2. Start with a new optimized URL, reusing some of the old content and utilizing a 301 redirect from the previous page? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | XLMarketing0 -
When to use canonical urls
I will be the first to admit I am never really 100% sure when to use canonical urls. I have a quick question and I am not really sure if this is a situation for a canonical or not. I am looking at a my friends building website and there are issues with what pages are ranking. Basically there homepage is focusing on the building refurbishment location but for some reason in internal page is ranking for that keyword and it is not mentioned at all on that page. Would this be a time to add the homepage url and a canonical on the ranking page (using yoast plugin) to tell Google that the homepage is the preferred page? Thanks Paul
Technical SEO | | propertyhunter0 -
Parallax Scrolling & SEO
Does anyone know the impact of Parallax scrolling from a SEO prospective?
Technical SEO | | AlgoFreaks0 -
Canonical URL Issue
Hi Everyone, I'm fairly new here and I've been browsing around for a good answer for an issue that is driving me nuts here. I tried to put the canonical url for my website and on the first 5 or 6 pages I added the following script SEOMoz reported that there was a problem with it. I spoke to another friend and he said that it looks like it's right and there is nothing wrong but still I get the same error. For the URL http://www.cacaniqueis.com.br/video-caca-niqueis.html I used the following: <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="http://www.cacaniqueis.com.br/video-caca-niqueis.html" /> Is there anything wrong with it? Many thanks in advance for the attention to my question.. 🙂 Alex
Technical SEO | | influxmedia0 -
Overly Dynamic URLs
I have a site that I use to time fitness events and I like to post the results using query strings. I create a link to each event's results/gallery/etc. I don't need these pages crawled and I don't want them to hurt my seo. Can I put a "do not crawl" meta on them or will that hurt my overall positioning? What are my other options?
Technical SEO | | bobbabuoy0 -
Www or not www base url
Here is the situation. Developer custom coded a magento commerce shop for a seo client and is having problems adding www to the URL without breaking the site. They wont be able to get this completed until a couple months down the road. We are starting monthly SEO this June. Most directories and websites link to the www version of a site not the non www. What should I expect since we are ranking for the non-www and linking to the www version. In web master tools i'm telling google to display the URL as www.
Technical SEO | | waqid0 -
Hyphen in URL
Hi, I would like to know if the following statement holds true today or it doesn't matter whether we use hyphens or underscore If you have a URL like keyword1_keyword2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for keyword1_keyword2 ( highly unlikely ) . But If you have a URL like keyword1-keyword2, that page can be returned for the searches - keyword1,keyword2 and even “keyword1keyword2” Thanks
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Drupal URL Aliases vs 301 Redirects + Do URL Aliases create duplicates?
Hi all! I have just begun work on a Drupal site which heavily uses the URL Aliases feature. I fear that it is creating duplicate links. For example:: we have http://www.URL.com/index.php and http://www.URL.com/ In addition we are about to switch a lot of links and want to keep the search engine benefit. Am I right in thinking URL aliases change the URL, while leaving the old URL live and without creating search engine friendly redirects such as 301s? Thanks for any help! Christian
Technical SEO | | ChristianMKTG0