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    4. Are URL shorteners building domain authority everytime someone uses a link from their service?

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    Are URL shorteners building domain authority everytime someone uses a link from their service?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • Jay.Neely
      Jay.Neely last edited by

      My understanding of domain authority is that the more links pointing to any page / resource on a domain, the greater the overall domain authority (and weight passed from outbound links on the domain) is.

      Because URL shorteners create links on their own domain that redirect to an off-domain page but link "to" an on-domain URL, are they gaining domain authority each time someone publishes a shortened link from their service? Or does Google penalize these sites specifically, or links that redirect in general? Or am I missing something else?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Jay.Neely
        Jay.Neely @RyanKent last edited by

        Ryan, thanks for responding, but I may have not been clear in my question. Your answer is about domain authority for the ultimate destination of the link; let's say http://bit.ly/xyz redirects to http://www.seomoz.org/q/are-url-shorteners-building-domain-authority-everytime-someone-uses-a-link-from-their-service

        And let's say 20 people on tweet the http://bit.ly/xyz link, and the text of several of those tweets is reproduced (link included) on eight websites. Does http://bit.ly 's domain authority increase as a result of those 20 tweets and eight website links?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RyanKent
          RyanKent last edited by

          Jay, you are asking a great question and the answer is yes, links that are offered from URL shortener services build DA.

          Think of those links as 301s. When you use http://bit.ly/xyz that URL is 301'd to the actual web address. As with all 301s, you do lose a bit of link juice due to the 301, but 90%+ of the value will remain.

          Jay.Neely 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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