Link shorteners and SEO: Impact on SEO and online strategies

Link shorteners and SEO: Impact on SEO and online strategies Administrateur
June 07, 2023

Link shorteners have become extremely popular with the rise of social networking and the growth of online communications. They enable long URLs to be condensed into shorter, more aesthetically pleasing links. However, the use of these services can have an impact on a website's natural search engine optimisation (SEO) and requires some strategic thinking.

 

1. Reduced visibility of the domain

 

When you use a link shortener, the original URL is often replaced by a generic domain belonging to the shortening service. For example, if you use cyrmp.com, your link may look like "cyrmp.com/xyz12". This means that your site's domain name will not appear in the shared URL, reducing the visibility of your brand.

 

2. Risk of penalties and spam links

 

Link shorteners are often used for sharing purposes on social networks, forums and other online platforms. However, some link shortening services have been misused for spamming or distributing malicious content. As a result, search engines may consider these links suspicious and penalise them.

 

3. Loss of control over redirections

 

When you use a third-party link shortener, you lose a certain amount of control over redirections. If the service encounters technical problems, closes down or changes its policies, this can lead to the loss of valuable links and potentially affect your SEO. It is important to use trusted services and to regularly monitor the links generated.

 

4. Advantages of link shorteners

 

Although link shorteners can present certain disadvantages for SEO, they also offer potential advantages. For example, some services offer statistical analyses of the number of clicks, the origin of traffic and other useful metrics for assessing the effectiveness of your online campaigns.

 

5. Strategies for optimising the use of link shorteners

 

If you decide to use link shorteners, here are a few strategies to minimise the impact on your SEO:

 

  • Choose a reputable, reliable and best-practice link shortener.
     
  • Regularly monitor the links generated and replace them if necessary.
     
  • Create a redirect page on your own site with a descriptive URL that redirects to the shortened URL. This will allow you to maintain some visibility for your domain.
     
  • Use shortened links sparingly and use full URLs whenever possible.
     
  • Optimise your other SEO strategies to compensate for the loss of visibility caused by shortened links.

 

In conclusion, link shorteners can be useful for simplifying URLs and monitoring the performance of your shared links. However, it is important to consider the implications for natural referencing and to put in place appropriate strategies to minimise the potential risks. A balance between using link shorteners and preserving your brand's visibility is essential to optimising your online strategies.