The Effect of Using Short links?

[Ade_Lack]

Can someone fill me in on the low down with regard to how link shortening services.

(a) Do these links have an SEO effect for the site they point to?

(b) Will visitors that land on my site from clicking a shortened link show in google analytics?

I use ow.ly via hootesuite for tweetin' and when you click through one of these links there is a top frame added on top of the linked to page.

Thanks in advance,

Ade

[contentsynergy]

Unfortunately, the long answer is REALLY long -
The anatomy of a server sided redirect: 301, 302 and 307

I did some work on a currently-successful commercial URL shortener. After months of benchmarked use, the use of a 307 redirect (which is available in the 30DC Pretty Links WordPress plugin) has not appeared to have much negative impact SEO-wise. The 301 shouldn't either - but using a 301 results in missing traffic.

Here is what Google's Matt Cutts sez about 301 redirects.


The problem with URL shorteners is that, as used in Twitter et al, the anchor text is ofter the same as the URL - ie <a href="http://example.com/foo">example.com/foo</a>. So you lose the anchor text, which is an extremely important part of your SEO. The end result is that it isn't the short link or the redirect that is the problem - its the lack of any anchor text when its used.

That's why using Pretty Links - or a commercial service like BudURL - that allows you to make your own link text can be helpful. You can use a keyword in the rather than the nonsensical string.

As a commercial approach - since info domains are so incredibly cheap - you might consider creating your own shortener service utilizing Pretty Links on an alternate domain. For example, your main site (or sites) have domains like

www.vintage-guitars-today.net

and

www.reallyoldguitarsblog.com

. You also grab a simple .info domain like

vguitar.info

. Set up a simple blog with Pretty Links in your info domain, and use it for keyword-based traffic -

vguitar.info/gibson

might point to

www.reallyoldguitarsblog.com/vintage-electric/1966-gibson-auction

.

On my own sites, I've seen anchor text follow 307s and 301s consistently - remember, if you want to see for yourself use Google Webmaster tools.