BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News

Should You Use URL Shorteners?

Sorry about last week, the Google URL shortener link
wasn’t working for 3 or 4 days, believe it is working now.
Thanks to all the subscribers who alerted me about this
issue. In the past, I had been using bit.ly but had switched
to Goo.gl, well – because it’s Google. And everything works
better with Google, this is the first time something I used
from Google had not worked as planned.

It just wasn’t my links, none of the links with Goo.gl were
working. No big loss, unless you were linking your Black Friday
& Cyber Monday traffic thru these shorteners. Ouch.

But this brings up the whole question of whether or not you
should use a link shortener?

A URL link shortener works by redirecting your shorter link
to the one you have entered into their database. If this is
a permanent 301 redirect, then your SEO benefits should past
through to your longer link. No harm is done. But if the shortening
service uses a 302 temporary link then SEO is not passed thru
to your longer link since the search engines only read this
link as temporary.

Both bit.ly and goo.gl uses 301 redirects so they are SEO
friendly, if they’re working!

I only started using those link shorteners because of Twitter
which only gives you 140 characters to make your point. These
shorteners are also good for sharing and spreading your links
around the web. However, in one way using a URL shortener is
not a smart marketing move because you are giving up control
of your link – putting it in someone else’s hands, in this
case Google’s.

If it goes down, or they decide not to link to your content
for some reason, you’re in trouble. The same goes for bit.ly,
they are in control of your links. Maybe it doesn’t count
so much if it is a general link, but if you have an affiliate
link in there, you can’t change or alter it.

One of the unwritten rules of Internet Marketing, always control
your links and route them through your own domain which you
control. Especially if you place these links into viral ebooks,
articles, videos… make sure you are linking through a URL
on your site. This way you can easily alter the link if
anything changes.

I like using the simple Loading Page, given out by Clickbank
some time ago but later discover it is a “refresh” method which
is not good for SEO.:

Of course, you have to take out the () and place your link in
the three places, then save this HTML page on your site’s server.
Place your keyworded title for this page in this URL, so you would
have something like: http://yoursite.com/mainkeywords.htm

The above coding was mainly designed so no one could change/steal
your affiliate links, but it can be used to link to any page on the
web or on your site. Instead of linking directly to pages on the web,
you route them all through your site. This way you have control and
can change them at any time. Extremely useful if you place your links
in viral ebooks, videos, articles… once these links get out there,
you can’t take them back but if you’re routing them through your site,
you will always control those links and can change them at will.

It’s up to yourself whether or not you use these URL shorteners,
but if you decide to use them, just make sure the service you pick
uses 301 redirects so you don’t lose any SEO benefits.

For more information on URL Sshorteners and which one you should use,
try this helpful link from Searchengineland:


Which Url Shortening Service Should You Use?

Here’s what Google and Matt Cutts says on the matter.

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

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