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
-
How to shorten URL adress?
hi,
Social Media | | JonsonSwartz
in my business Facebook page I have my website address. I want to track how many people arriving through this URL address to my site. I want to use URL builder but the final URL is too long and not pretty. I thought about using bitly.com but I need that the address on my page will contain the name of my brand. any ideas hot to shorten the URL address and still be able to track the data? thank you all.0 -
Why isn't open graph working for this URL?
When I post this URL (http://goo.gl/iDMsJq) to my Facebook page, the image is small, and it isn't pulling the correct description. I checked FB object debugger, and it looks fine - so why isn't it working properly when I post to Facebook? https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthline.com%2Fhealth-slideshow%2Fquit-smoking-timeline
Social Media | | nicole.healthline0 -
Favorite to many tweets: a violation?
Couldn't find anything in their guidelines about it, I noticed a good way to get people to follow you is to favorite their tweets. Can there be to many according to twitter?
Social Media | | cbielich0 -
Sorry! I am not understanding how a Re Tweet helps with any lift in rankings.
Does anyone have an infographic to explain how social media increases any lift in the SERP's. I just am not grasping how if I re tweet a link that the search enegines see this and say "this must be important" let rank it higher.. Where is the Social Media Moz Guru?
Social Media | | SEObleu.com0 -
Do keywords in a URL that's linkified provide anchor text benefits?
I'm curious about links that are just URLs (e.g. http://www.google.com/reader) or in a URL-like format (e.g. Google.com/Reader) vs links with plain-word anchor text (e.g. Google Reader). If a link that is just a URL (or a partial URL) has keywords in it, do those keywords provide anchor text relevance benefits? I'm particularly thinking about URL shorteners that provide customized links, and social media. Many web tools (twitter, blog comment systems) don't render HTML but will automatically link URLs. If http://boston.craigslist.org/jjj/ gets linked to through custom shortened URLs like http://bit.ly/Boston-Jobs, is it more likely to rank for the term "Boston Jobs" than if it received the same number of links using a non-custom shortened URL like http://bit.ly/ejq5uX9?
Social Media | | Jay.Neely0 -
Like my Facebook Page or my Facebook URL?
Like many other companies or company has a site and a Facebook page. With the Facebook like button your can either specify a url or a Facebook Page. So I don't know what would be better to get more 'likes' or if I need both? My thoughts: More people liking the Facebook Page then we can post updated to more people that will show on their wall. More url likes, I think this might have (or will have) effect on search engine rankings. The more people that like your url the higher it could be in rankings. I don't really want both as most people won't go through the trouble to 'like' both plus it is confusing. Please let me know your thoughts or strategy.
Social Media | | lsujoe0 -
What is more important, tweets/shares or traditional link building?
SMM has a presence that is just growing and growing. I'm hearing all these back and forth talks about how tweets/shares are influencing rankings more than traditional link building would. If so, would this be a short term ranking improvement, long term? What percentage would you say SMM (ranking factor) has when ranking a website in the SERPS.
Social Media | | Brother220 -
How much attention do you pay to hashtags in your tweets?
I haven't really paid much attention to adding hashtags to my tweets, but I'm thinking I should. For my real estate site I just started following the mayor of our city. I noticed that he finishes each of his tweets with #ourcityname. I clicked on the hashtag because I wanted to find more people who tweet about our city. Then, I suddenly realized that if I used that hashtag when I tweet then other people would find me and follow me. Any thoughts?
Social Media | | MarieHaynes0