Does Bitly hurt your SEO?
-
I often use bit.ly or Google URL shortener in links when other websites post my articles so I can track clicks. However, I am thinking this may HURT my SEO given that it is taking away a back link to my website. Is that logic correct ?
If so, what is a good way to be able to track clicks if a website posts your article without jeopardizing the SEO value?
-
the bots can easily identify a url shortener, as this performs a normal 301 redirect
-
Thanks, but I am wondering how this is possible, unless the search bots could identify that it is a link shortener
-
You're probably right about the estimate. I haven't done any testing on it or the impact of redirects in general personally, but have seen some folks suggest as high as 99% but others much lower.
-
no, i'm referring to Boomajoom's comment above "only 99% of the rank instead of the full value".
-
thanks, what do you mean 99%. do you mean that it's 99% less effective?
-
no, it won't hurt your SEO, but you will get less out of it than by linking directly. how much of the link juice flows is unclear, but my estimate is that it's much lower than 99%.
-
I see a lot of people use bitly, but I personally prefer using goo.gl, it's a Google product and it pretty much gives you the same metrics than bitly.
-
Slightly. Like any redirect, you lose some of the link value. However, Google has said that PageRank does flow through shortened URL's. It just might only be 99% of the rank instead of the full value.
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 a change in IP address affects SEO?
Our domain is pretty mature, has several quality backlinks - ranks well for our key terms - but we need to change our IP address because we use a cloud provider and it's a shared IP that has had a security breach. How will this affect rankings? www.layer7.com
Technical SEO | | Layer7Tech0 -
Will using tabs on my page for navigation hurt SEO
Currently we have tabs on some pages that are set so that the page shows all the content for search engines on one page, but the user sees only part of the content until they click a tab. We are unable to use title tags for the tabbed areas. We think this hurts us from an SEO standpoint. We are getting only 3 keyword where we could have 12 if they were individual pages. What is the thought on using tabs and is it okay? Has there been any case studies on this?
Technical SEO | | cayseo0 -
SEO credit for subdomain blogs?
One of my clients is currently running a webstore through Volusions. They would like to add a blog to their website, but since Volusions doesn't currently support blogs on the same domain we would have to create a Wordpress blog and link it to a subdomain. (http://support.volusion.com/article/linking-your-blog-your-volusion-store) Using this method, will their primary website receive any SEO credit for the content being created on the blog or will it only count towards the subdomain? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CMSSolutions980 -
Which Wordpress Framework for Best SEO
Which wordpress framework would you use for SEO. From what I have had a look at: Thesis is good but you cannot use other SEO plugins with it such as yoast SEO as it is not compatible Genesis or woo framework are good and a plugin like yoast SEO works well with them. What are your thoughts?
Technical SEO | | VivaArturo1 -
Technical SEO question re: java
Hi, I have an SEO question that came my way, but it's a bit too technical for me to handle. Our entire ecom site is in java, which apparently writes to a page after it has loaded and is not SEO-friendly. I was presented with a work-around that would basically consist of us pre redering an html page to search engines and leaving the java page for the customer. It sounds like G's definition of "cloaking" to me, but I wanted to know if anyone has any other ideas or work-arounds (if there are any) on how we can make the java based site more SEO-friendly. Any thoughts/comments you have would be much appreciated. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | Improvements0 -
Subdomains & SEO
Exact match domains are great for ranking but what about domains which contain just half of the full phrase being targeted? eg. If you owned the domain rentals.co.uk but wanted to target the search term "car rentals" Regarding backlinks, would it be best to link back to your rentals.co.uk homepage (using anchor text "car rentals") or to one of the following: a) www.rentals.co.uk/car-rentals b) car.rentals.co.uk AND 301 redirect to www.rentals.co.uk c) car.rentals.co.uk AND 301 redirect to www.rentals.co.uk/car-rentals
Technical SEO | | martyc1 -
Wordpress Problems.. SEO-Yoast is Toast?
Hello; I have installed the WP Yoast Widget in my Blog, and 2 weeks, after my issues went away, they came back X's 300! lol So I uninstalled it, and my issues obviously got worse, and then I re-activated, and reset everything, and still got the 300+ issues. Is there a secondary plug in you would suggest, to run at the same time as Yoats, or theat will fix all issues? Ever think of making an SEOmoz Widget for WP since it is gaining so much popularity?? Thank you Great work by the way! Loved the Webinar today!
Technical SEO | | smstv0