URL Shorteners and SEO, According to Google

Matt Cutts: The PageRank Will Flow Through

By Chris Crum · April 22, 2011 · 91 Comments

URL Shorteners and SEO, According to Google

With Google looking more at social media these days, in terms of ranking signals, a lot of webmasters continue to wonder how Google treats URL-shorteners in terms of SEO.

This isn’t completely new information, but it still seems to be a topic that continues to come up fairly regularly. Google’s Matt Cutts addressed the issue in a video posted to Google’s Webmaster Help YouTube channel.

“Custom URL shorteners are essentially just like any other redirects,” he explains. “If we try to crawl a page, and we see a 301 or permanent redirect, which pretty much all well-behaved URL shorteners (like bit.ly or goo.gl) will do, if we see that 301 then that will pass PageRank to the final destination.”

“So in general, there really shouldn’t be any harm to using custom URL shorteners in your SEO,” he continues. “The PageRank will flow through. The anchor text will flow through, and so I wouldn’t necessarily worry about that at all.”

“Now, just to let you know, if you look at, for example, Twitter’s web pages, many of those links have a nofollow link,” he adds. “So those links that are on the webpage, may not necessarily flow PageRank, but we might be able to find out about those links through some other way – maybe a data feed or something like that. But just URL shorteners, as far as how they relate to SEO, are not necessarily a problem at all.”

When we spoke with Gil Reich of Answers.com at SMX Advanced last summer, he suggested using shorteners that let you get keywords in the URLs.

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Google actually updated its own URL shortener, goo.gl, with some new features this past week. New features include: copy to clipboard, remove from dashboard, spam reporting, and improvements in speed and stability.

“Even as we add features, we continue to focus on making goo.gl one of the fastest and most reliable URL shorteners on the web,” said Google software engineer Devin Mullins. “We’ll continue working hard to ensure that we add minimal latency to the user experience and extend our track record of rock-solid reliability—we’ve had no service outages since we launched last September.”

Anything to add to the URL-shortener/SEO conversation? Comment here.

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There are 91 Comments. Add Yours.

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April 12, 2011 at 4:20 am
Reply

hey that’s a really nice post. but i want to know more about SEO. thanks
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  April 17, 2011 at 11:51 am
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JohnH
April 12, 2011 at 7:52 am
Reply

Great information. I always wondered about tinyurl and PageRank.
Sam
April 12, 2011 at 10:02 am
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I seriously recommend everybody to ignore anything this man has to say. Do the opposite of what he always recommend or nothing and you’ll do much better. Talking from experience. The man has contradicted himself so many times I don’t know why he is still working there really. His job is to confuse webmasters to keep them at bay in my opinion. Look at the Panda victims, all following the rules. Take my advice and don’t listen. It is obvious the man doesn’t know every single detail of the work the team of coders are actually doing.
- Michael Martinez
  April 12, 2011 at 2:00 pm
  Reply
  
  Sam wrote: “The man has contradicted himself so many times I don’t know why he is still working there really. ”
  
  Really? Can you give us a for instance?
  - Sam
    April 12, 2011 at 9:25 pm
    Reply
    
    Way too many times Michael. Meaning, he tries to keep people from doing one thing and then you see sites at the top by doing the opposite. For example the reciprocal linking BS and millions of other 1995 blackhat tricks work wonders these days. I haven’t paid attention to anything he has had to say for awhile now. Peeking for a couple minutes in Blackhatworld where I have a HUGE following, you’ll see enough evidence from users that shows this man is full of hot air. I mean, study the man. He has the answer for every Seo trick question that is thrown at him. He BS his way through with every answer. He doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about most of the time. It’s common sense; he doesn’t know everything his team is doing. He is the Bagdad Bob of Google. Loves the attention.
    
    I’ve never been affected by Panda or any of their algo. changes. That’s what I’ve always done, blackhat, the opposite of what he recommends.
    - Sam
      April 12, 2011 at 9:28 pm
      Reply
      
      “1999″ blackhat tricks I meant. I was thinking of eBay for some reason.
  - THE MAN
    April 17, 2011 at 2:34 pm
    Reply
    
    HA HA OMG. SAM, 10 YEARS OF GLANCING AT STUPID F***** ARTICLES LIKE THIS, AND FINALLY I SEE AN INTELLIGENT COMMENT. THIS GUY (SAM) IS SMARTER THAN ALL OF YOU, TRUST ME
- Jesse
  April 17, 2011 at 11:48 am
  Reply
  
  Wow this is an interesting reply. By blackhat, are you talking about techniques that have little risk of being banned? I use known tricks on my own sites. Maybe what I do would be considered grey hat.
  - eli
    May 8, 2012 at 9:10 pm
    Reply
    
    No, by blackhat he means that you have a high risk of getting banned. Blackhat is bad.
- Bluestar
  April 17, 2011 at 2:45 pm
  Reply
  
  That is simply not true.
Taylor Clark
April 12, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Reply

Just because the blackhat tricks work, does not mean that this author is wrong, or full of hot air for that matter.

Perhaps he, like many of us, appreciate SEO without tricking the system. Its difficult enough as it is to do things the right way, the more tricks people pull, the more changes they will make over time. Just a thought.
BS
April 14, 2011 at 11:12 am
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Thank you for this great blog. BS96
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April 14, 2011 at 11:53 pm
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If in this way,I think there would be many black hat seoer ,they can just make the main domain name 301 redirect to the new page? And rank will be transfer to the new domains?
smith
April 16, 2011 at 5:05 am
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great helpful info you have shared
Web Directory
April 16, 2011 at 5:31 am
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URL Shorteners is significant for SEO.Great article.Thnaks .
Mahi
April 16, 2011 at 6:21 am
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Thanks sharing….great information
Lily Candice
April 17, 2011 at 6:53 am
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Now, this information will insist to make short url’s for webmasters.
Free Radio Fm
April 17, 2011 at 7:15 am
Reply

That is good Post..Really I Love SEO
Jackie Connelly-Fornuff
April 17, 2011 at 7:24 am
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I use them for my blogs. Activerain.com supplies it for us and we can copy and paste that into facebook and twitter. It’s good to see how many clicks I get from the URL I pasted into FB and twitter.
Sreejesh@techgyo
April 17, 2011 at 7:26 am
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I was little bit worried about using URL shortners when it comes to SEO, its really good to know that it doesn’t harm the link flow.
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April 17, 2011 at 7:35 am
Reply

Thank you for this excellent post that has helped clear up an issue for me. I’ll make sure of sharing it on twitter.
Rob Willox | SEO Falkirk
April 17, 2011 at 7:53 am
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Regardless of what anyone says if the shortening service you are using doesn’t do a 301 redirect then change to one that does. I use my own 3rd party service which was changed to do a 301 and it also enables aliases (keywords) to be used as link text as well.

Posted about the very same thing earlier this month entitled Google: Short Urls are fine for SEO! with the Matt Cutts video.
Naturopathy
April 17, 2011 at 7:54 am
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I use Zonealarm security suite and am unable to access any URLs shortened with snipurl and tinyurl – they are flagged up as spy sites. Bit.ly works fine.
Titus
April 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
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SEO stuff seems right but that last statement was incorrect. I started using the Google URL Shortner as soon as it was launched. Ha – it’s from Google!

But a few months back – one of my URLs threw up a “Page Not Found” killjoy… just after I sent the shortened URL in a Twitter Post and in an email to my lists.

And yes I checked everything – about five times and it still wasn’t working… and yes the URL was working right when I created it – the service wasn’t down but it wasn’t working correctly. I noticed because it was one of the few things from Google that didn’t work as planned. I went back to bit.ly for my URLS.

I am gradually weaning my way back to Goo.gl because, well, it’s from Google!
- Pen
  April 17, 2011 at 8:50 pm
  Reply
  
  I had the same experience when I checked one of my Google shortened links later, so I reverted back to bit.ly.
  
  I inititially changed to Goo.gl because it was Google, but think I’ll be sticking with bit.ly from now on.
SEO Expert SF Bay Area
April 17, 2011 at 8:08 am
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That’s reassuring for SEO purpose.
Ecommerce web design
April 17, 2011 at 8:10 am
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Well this is nice to know, infact i didnt even know up until now that it was a fact that you will get page rank from the links. I fought it was just a myth but now it is confirmed so thats good to know…
Peter Sundstrom
April 17, 2011 at 8:20 am
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I generally always use bit.ly, but I do try to customise the URL to include my keyword.
Climatiseur
April 17, 2011 at 8:59 am
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Wonder if using goo.gl instead of bit.ly gives a better page rank and more juice…
Dan
April 17, 2011 at 9:13 am
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It’s great to get up to date information on the ever changing SEO tactic’s and to keep up with Google’s fickle personality. Great blogging tips as well. Building blogs that rank well with Google takes time and dedication on our part, thank you for your help to do just that!

Dan
Guillaume Bouchard
April 17, 2011 at 9:42 am
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Are you guys ever going to delete all the comment spamming on WebProNews? Roughly 50% of all comments I read are 1. Useless 2. With a targeted spammy anchor..

Its not like its bringing anything to the conversation and you guys are no editors if you let that happen.
- Taiwanese Secrets
  April 17, 2011 at 9:59 am
  Reply
  
  I believe that is an unfair characterization of what happens on this board.
  - Bluestar
    April 17, 2011 at 2:40 pm
    Reply
    
    I agree with you Taiwanese Secrets.
    
    Most have much more spam. Guillaume Bouchard, do you have any idea how hard it is to follow up on ALL the comments? The site is good and relitaively clean. good job.
    From experience URL shortners do not effect my SEO. OH, and I DARE ANYONE using blackhat garbage to rank high on Google. And THAT is where the money is!
web designer
April 17, 2011 at 10:20 am
Reply

So Google finally let the cat out of the bag and shared this very critical information with the SEO world!
For me, I have shied away from URL shortening unless necessary, i.e., Twitter. Perhaps it’s not a safe assumption that this may be a more effective tool in the SEO toolbox, especially seeing that page rank is passed on.
On a more interesting note, it sounds as though Matt may have indicated that despite a “no-follow” attribute, short URL’s may still be recognized by search engines if implemented through data feeds:

(Quoted from above)
Great post!
Horace Moning
April 17, 2011 at 10:27 am
Reply

How can i get this facebook marketing.
Jostyn
April 17, 2011 at 10:28 am
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Just a nit pick – “Page Rank” thought that was dead (according to Cutts) as in every page is ranked 0-10 – do you actually mean page ranking as in where the page ranks for a search term?
Joe
April 17, 2011 at 11:23 am
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Interesting piece of information.
Michael Holman
April 17, 2011 at 11:36 am
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That’s good to know. While I do not use url shorteners yet, I’ve been toying with the idea of using them for a while now. Just wasn’t sure what impact they would have on the SEO front, but that’s clear now. Much thanks.
Opie Winfrey
April 17, 2011 at 11:45 am
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It is getting harder and harder to find good backlinks without nofollow code. It would be nice to know the best way, if any, to get around this, especially on twitter/facebook. If we can’t, there has to be some better choices out there to earn pagerank, but it’s hard to see where. Blogs all have nofollow now, and if you buy links, Google shoots you down.
Sandeep@CuriousLittlePerson
April 17, 2011 at 1:25 pm
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Hey Chris – Thats’ pretty nice information on shortners.. never really have thought about this..
- Barbie
  April 30, 2012 at 9:24 am
  Reply
  
  Yes, Chris is bringing new updates every time, let’s see his opinion about Penguin this time.