URL Shorteners. Are they SEO Friendly?

[kchandler]

Do URL shortener services like bit.ly act as 301 redirects? I was thinking about utilizing one for longer query based URLs and didn't want to risk losing link juice. Thanks for the insight!

Regards - Kyle

[gmk1567]

Yes, they act as a 301 redirect and you will lose some link juice technically.

As long as you use them for Twitter, you will be fine. Anyway Twitter is not going to pass any link value to you.

For regular link building, use actual URL.

[kchandler]

Thank you for your response. I don't plan on using this for twitter. To track how successful certain articles & press releases are I use Google's UTM link tracking. At times these URLs get quite long and my client asked about using Bit.ly URL shortener. I just wasn't sure if they acted as 301's or not.

Have you done this in the past and found that you still got credit for the links? or have you only used it with social media that are normally no follow's anyway?

[AlanMosley]

Yes they do, i seen testes where they were used to test if link text was passed though a 301, so yes, they must be at least the ones he used, and they did pass link text also.
best test it yourself

[NoahGlaser78]

You will get credit for the link since they act as 301 redirects. But whenever possible use the real url

[10JQKAs]

Bit.ly (301 redirect) is, but some popular shorteners like su.pr (302), are not.

[EGOL]

I can understand why shorteners are handy for twitter where the number of characters available is very limited.

Beyond that I don't use these shorteners.  Why redirect anything unnecessarily.  It risks a drop in anchor text value and linkvalue.  Also, some people hesitate to click shortened URLs because they could be hiding a nasty destination.

I am not using them.. no way.