hello all a question: if i'm using a link shortener such as bit.ly service on a hardlink such as www.domain.com and post the bit.ly link on websites - will my site www.domain.com still get backlink seo credit for it? what kind of referal would i see on analytics? bitly or the site I have posted the link on?
No - it's basically passing through a 3rd party. All you really get is the traffic. The referral would be from whatever the final URL is that you've set.
magda- yes its a 301. what I mean is if the 301 runs through a third party side first and then to my site , a simple check of server headers would reveal it. I texted it and it doesn't pass through a third party site.
Seriously, you will not get benefits from these links. It's a topic that has been beaten to death on Mashable.com, SEOmoz and others.
see matt cutts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd4QA21JMQo to make a long story short - these links have seo value (pr flow), the only "bad" thing is - no anchor text supporting the page.
I started my own URL shotener recently and of course use it for all my links ohurl.com check it out let me know what you think. I personally like url that dont look like random, that's why i built mine. nice youtube link btw
I don't trust those new shorteners. Except tinyurl.com because they've been around for years and not just since twitter made them popular. You'll never know if bit.ly or tr.im or all those others might disappear or redirect to their ads instead of your link.
That probably wouldn't happen, the sites would be disowned and it would be horrible to redirect all their URL's to their ads just to make money. If you are nervous about using shorter URL's because they don't hold much value, use some URL shorteners that have toolbars at the top so users can actually interact with the site. For example, Digg's URL shortening service or Stumbleupon's new http://su.pr/