I know I have more work to do in terms of optimizing my site, but when I post links to my site, is it hurting my rankings if I use a URL shortener service such as bit.ly or tinyurl? Should I be using my URL if I want to increase my rankings, or will google resolve the bit.ly/tinyurl addresses to my real one?
Hi JC, Google does NOT register your shortened links as a backlink to your site. The only traffic you will get from those links are from people directly clicking on the link. Shortened links neither help nor hinder your ranking. Cheers, Sam
Yes it will hurt your Site Indeed .. best option would be to do smooth and steady promotion daily with your original link!
Twitter not only shortens your URL, it adds the nofollow attribute. So there is no direct SEO benefit from Twitter even if you are able to enter your own site's URL. There is potentially indirect benefit, however. Once you get a visitor from Twitter, their internal activity is recorded if you're using Google Analytics and/or they're using a toolbar (e.g. Alexa, Yahoo or Google). It's also interesting to note that Google Analytics seems to be unable to see bit.ly links. This will probably change in future (if it hasn't already), but makes for an interesting boost to your traffic when you add stats from bit.ly.
These url's r only used for shortening, no other benefits with them. If u use subdomains it is wise to hide ur address with bit.ly but if u have a short domain it should be used directly thus peoples can assume the contents of sites. But in case of subdomain people may not interested.
How can links "hurt" your site? they can't, every link helps Although, the links posted on twitter have the nofollow attribute added, the only links they will help with ranking are the source links, here is short writeup on how to optimize your social networks.
you are wrong , posting links on twitter is worthy because there are tons of sites copying twitter pages and tweets Those sites may be dofollow !
There will be no direct benefit from twitter on regards to SEO but there are indirect benefits so best can be posting your website link else use shortner...
Every little bit helps but I wouldn't put a lot of time into twitter. Building good content and getting quality links are much more valuable to you in the SERPs. Now if you have a large following then you may get links back to your site from some of them. But if you have few followers time spent on writing articles, posting in forums, posting blog entries on blogger.com back to your site and so on are a much better way to use your time to build your SERP standings.
it wont help with serps but it can help bring in traffic also if the twitt gets big you can get direct backlinks to the site through other sites
spiders just freakingly eat twitter links for breakfast, lunch and dinner... All together definitely helps your rankings.
If the URL shortener uses a 301 re-direct, then my opinion is that it carrys over the weight to the redirected page
gdmarketing is right and most of the major url shorteners DO use a 301 rediect. (see which ones do and don't here http://searchengineland.com/analysis-which-url-shortening-service-should-you-use-17204) However, twitter is nofollow - but if the links is posted or re-posted somewhere that's dofollow, it's treated as a normal link.