More and more URL shortening services are emerging everyday. Besides the major url shortener’s viz bit.ly, tiny url, goo.gl, there is a large number of url shortener’s that are available for use. Moreover, there are ways to get your own custom url shortener. The first time i heard of these url shortener’s one question sprouted in my mind immediately and that was “the advantage of using it in terms of search engine optimization”.
Upon searching for their SEO advantage in using them, i found out that no article/post directly mentions that there IS any advantage of using them. A further deep search in the same matter resulted in the following conclusions :
- One of the main idea of using url shortening is NOT to pass credit to destination website.
- There are ‘Social Optimization’ benefits rather than SEO advantages.
- Reliability as in if a service such as tinyURL or Bit.ly fails or is taken offline, each and every link posted on Twitter using these services, would become deadlinks – an issue which would create havoc in the social world.
- Google’s future motive – There is no denying that Google is watching everything on the internet. Using their own url shortening service they have an insight as to what is being passed around online. Which i think will sooner or later effect their algorithm some how. Or it will probably work nicely with their new live search results feature !
- Last point being the usability factor. It is much easier to use short url’s instead of long ones. Plus they have a great usability in micro blogging services like twitter wherein there is a limit of 140 character’s.
- NO S.E.O advantage. All the url shortener’s aim towards better speed, security and stability. Their prime aim is to deliver these 3 benefits to the users.
Everything being said, the focus of the url shortening services is to ‘Shorten’ the url (Of-course you know that…). Other than that they dont have much to offer in terms of Search Engine optimization.
NOTE : I have tried to cover all the important aspects from my side, but if you think i have left any particular point or haven’t discussed anything, please do let me know. I will be happy to include those points too 🙂
 advantages of using URL shortening services such as goo.gl or bit.ly or tiny url,etc.){kind=link}
WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for Medicine
I know this is an older blog post but I was wondering if anyone has seen any SEO benefits so far of using goo.gl.
I totally agree with you, url shortening services do take up the link juice. BUT, it isn’t all about do-follow tags anymore. No-follow does count for too. Hence, even though services like goo.gl, bit.ly take up the link value, the originating link still gets some recognition. Atleast that’s what I have made up after forum discussions.
I’ve just put a full post of how this all works and the effect it has on SEO on my blog.
The key thing is beware the ‘nofollow’ tag ….
Interesting one here, actually may if be detrimental?
I.e if you give people shortened links to link to your site from twitter, squidoo etc how does that affect SEO?
As instead of having a backlink to your site, you end up with a backlink to goo.gl or bit.ly etc.
Food for thought!
Make sense that Google has already integrated it’s url shortener with analytics!
Google has already integrated it’s url shortener with analytics! Login to your google account and visit goo.gl.
I’m thinking that the more information Google has about your site the better it will be for your ranking (unless you are trying to game the system). I also wonder how long before Google integrates this into Google Analytics.
Well they actually wont. The only advantage of using Google’s url shortner is reliability. Though, i believe they somehow will have relevance in google caffeine (Google’s always has some motive behind its every product).
An interesting post, but I am still not clear how google’s service will result in SEO. Could you throw some more light on that?