Do URL Shorteners Hurt SEO?
I have been doing some Search Engine Optimization link building work for a client and was asked, “Do URL shortners like Bit.ly hurt SEO?” Since the emergence of Twitter as a social media powerhouse URL shortners like Bit.ly have been used to shorten long links so that you can make the most out of the 140 character limit. URL shortners also track how many people have clicked, shared and interacted with the link that you shortened. This gives you very good information on how affective a social media property, website, Tweet or blog post is at engaging it’s audience.For example if I was doing a giveaway with another website I would shorten: http://livelearnloveleave.com to http://bit.ly/A5HuOQ . Then I would ask the website to make the anchor text “social media career advice” and link it to the Bit.ly link.
Now to Answer The Question
Bit.ly and all of the top URL shorteners use a 301 permanent redirect to link the anchor text to my shortened link preserving the link benefits. So no these URL shorteners do not hurt you SEO. They are extremely valuable for getting real time data from your blog partnerships and to see which types of post, Tweets or Facebook post work best to get a response from your audience.
Here is Matt Cuts from Google explaining it in more details.
