Bit.ly URLs. Are they SEO Friendly?

[kchandler]

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

[kchandler]

Thank you again for your help, i did some more research and digging and found this: https://bitly.com/pages/help#i_0_1

[landed]

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.

[RyanKent]

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.

[kchandler]

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?

[kchandler]

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.

[RyanKent]

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.

[landed]

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 !)

1. htaccess - cant be modified on the fly and the resources to do this would not make this viable for shortening as we know it.

2. 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.