Should URLs in tweets be spelled out or shortened?
-
For SEO purposes to get links, does it make any difference whether URLs are shortened? Do the search engines analyze key words in twitter URLs for relevance?
-
We recently launched a facebook like campaign for one of our sites and got 100's of likes, and this appeared to contribute to our Trust Factors on SEO Moz. Google doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between paid advertising on Facebook and non paid like campaigns. It seemed to help us although we weren't specifically looking to work with Social as a part of our SEO strategy at that time. Anything that gets you out there has got to be good regardless of the size of the URL. In fact, maybe better to go with short URL given the character restriction on Twitter e.g.
-
I saw Followerwonk. Pretty cool.
I saw an interesting example of SUCCESSFUL Twitter & FaceBook posting and how their social activity trumped my SEO efforts.
http://aviation-sms.com has modest domain authority. We've been selling aviation safety software for 5 years.
A startup entered the arena and they are outranking us in the search engines. Not because of keywords or backlinks, but because of twitter posts (~45,000) and FaceBook likes, (maybe a couple hundred).
This opened my eyes! WIDELY and I realized the value of their social activity. I look at 45,000 tweets and think that this doesn't seem reasonable. They must be using tools to generate Tweets.
So I'm on the social media track now as part of my SEO strategy, something I've neglected for years.
-
Unless you really need the space to type in a long tweet, it is obviously better to include a direct link to your website for at least two reasons:
-
help build your brand (people see your domain, not a shortner)
-
help get social signals to improve your SEO efforts indirectly
Hope that helps.
-
-
Chris, Tommy is correct, all Twitter links are no follow. So i guess it would depend on what you are tweeting.
For the Social signal aspect of it, ie social recognition from the search engines, my best practice is to link to the BEST SHARABLE content. Whitepaper, Blog, Email marketing piece, the list goes on and on . As far as the url goes, it really doesnt matter if its shortened or not, because a link is a link. Make sure you share your most popular items and pages ( FROM AN SEO STANDPOINT ).
Check out Followerwonk. Really cool tool.
Best wishes,
Hampig M.
BizDetox
-
Hi Chris,
I believe Twitter links are "nofollow" links so even if you have thousands of link from Twitter, those links won't give you link juice. However, Search Engines do look like whether people are sharing your links on Social Media; therefore, it does play a role in SEO.
For Twitter best practices, you should shortened the link. It saves character space for your tweet and give you more characters to share what you want to say.
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
-
Business Tweets Showing up Organically
Question. I've noticed in the past and more recently that if you search a business (example: Adidas) in Google, you'll see their activity on Twitter being displayed organically. How can you get your business to show? I also did some research and found that some business that have their tweets displaying are not Twitter verified. I though that may have something to do with it...I guess it doesn't. Does anyone know what "triggers" a business to have their tweets show up organically. When you search Adidas, you'll see their business info, then the twitter carousel (displays 3 tweets and a arrow to view more). Thanks for your help. 102GB
Social Media | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
Is a way to analyse historical tweets to find out the global reach of a single tweet?
Do you know of any sites that allow a way to analyse historical tweets to find out the global reach of a single tweet? Thanks,
Social Media | | PhilYarrow
Phil0 -
How can I track on my facebook page shared links without using short url redirect service?
Hi, I wondering how can I track and analyze on all my shared links in my facebook business page without using short url redirect service like: “Tiny” url or “bitly”? Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | JonsonSwartz0 -
How to autofollow anyone who tweets/retweets my blog?
I'm not sure if here is the right place for this Q but since followerwonk is one of the SEOmoz tools, I thought I'd try. I want to autofollow anyone who tweets or retweets specific URLs (my blog posts on a large blog). Does anyone know how to do this? They often don't @mention me in the tweets, I just see them all on topsy. I get 50-100 a day and at the moment have been manually going through and following all those people. It's been a useful exercise so far to see what types of people are tweeting my stuff, but now it has got super tedious!
Social Media | | KateV0 -
Pay with a Tweet (or other social payments) in the Freemium world
Hi Mozer(s), I work for a company which provides cloud-based collaboration environments for companies. Like many companies in this field, we offer a Free package, which gives users enough capabilities to explore our tool under business-alike circumstances. However, we currently dont have a time limit for our free version - which, makes us (I think) quite unique from a competitive standpoint. But consequently, it also means a lot of users see no immediate need to upgrade to a business package. If maintaining this business model, we are considering various options in how to generate more awareness. The company is quite new and can generally only get better results of SEO and social media advancement. One alternative is to start charging for signup to the Free package, using Social payments scheme, i.e. get access to the collaboration tools for free if liking, tweeting, plusing us, using a pre-defined message, hashtag, etc, using a hybrid approach, allowing users to edit some/all of the message. It may have an impact on number of sign ups, but are there other potential negative effects? I have seen some comments, both positive and negative, about its SEO impact, mostly positive, not least from this [Youmoz post](How To: Win Tweets and Influence Search Engines with PayWithaTweet).- though unlikely to have a direct SEO effect, it can increase sharing, exposure and SERP presence. But any flip sides social payment users should be aware of? Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | Clinked0 -
Whats the SEO value of getting Likes to your brand's Facebook Page (not your site's URLs being Liked)?
UPDATED: I meant to say SEO VALUE, not just business value Lets say I have a site - www.company.com, and I set up a Facebook Page - www.facebook.com/company. I understand the SEO value of having the domain www.company.com "Liked", using the FB Like button on my homepage lets say, or the same goes for individual pages - www.company.com/page. My question is rather about having my Facebook Page - Facebook.com/company "Liked". Are those likes counted by the engines as a strong signal that www.company.com should rank well? Or only that the Facebook Page - Facebook.com/company should rank well in searches for that company?
Social Media | | Jeff.Gold-315371 -
Tweet or ReTweet?
So which is better for SEO, Tweets or ReTweets? We have a tweet button on our blog which seems to work pretty good. But I have noticed a few sites that instead of tweeting, they have a ReTweet button where you are actually ReTweeting an original tweet. Any thoughts?
Social Media | | Trupanion0 -
Impact of URL shorteners in Twitter feeds
Hello, Will use of URL shorteners [bit.ly/tiny.cc or equivalent] in Twitter feeds impact the rankings of a target pages? As I understand it Twiitter links are automatically generated as nofollows so I am assuming the published link is irrelevant. Is this still the case? If we do continue to use URL shortereners should we look at branded URL-shorteners to provide link context? Thanks.
Social Media | | Urbanfox0