By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Tinyurl, Bit.ly, tr.im, ju.mp… anyone who’s used Twitter recognizes these names as common URL shortening services that people use to turn long links into short, convenient links.  These are also used in other social media networks like Facebook.

The question is… can URL shorteners affect your SEO?  The answer is, yes, they most certainly can.

Consider the above tweet we made using the bit.ly URL shortener to link to one of our blog posts.  Does this link provide any SEO value? Would it have been different if we used another shortening service?

In order to answer these mystifying questions, Search Engine Land has created a useful chart detailing the basic differences between URL shorteners.

Here is the most important factor when it comes to URL shorteners and SEO: 301 and 302 redirects.

301 versus 302 Redirects:

301 redirects are highly preferable in a URL shortener, because they tell search engines to give link credit to your long URL, rather than the shortened one! This is also permanent and really helps give credit to your links. Luckily, the most commonly used URL shorteners like bit.ly and tinyurl use 301 redirects.

302 redirects, on the other hand, give only temporary link credit to your long links.  This tells search engines that the more powerful and important link is the shortened one, not yours! Here are some URL shorteners that use this dreaded 302 redirect: Hex.io, twurl.in, and eweri.

So next time you go to shorten that amazing link, be sure to pick a URL shortener that uses a 301 redirect. This will help you create inbound links to your site or blog, which will in turn increase your rankings in search engines!

By Britnee Nguyen (@brit_witters)

If you are getting a new website domain name, you might be wondering if all the SEO and internet marketing work you did for your original domain will carry over. Some people change their domain name to target a better audience by using their keywords in the URL. If you choose to do this, there are ways to do it without affecting the SEO you’ve already put in place.

Keep your old URL for the purpose of getting it forwarded onto your new website. This way if you have a returning customer who doesn’t know you changed your website, when they type in the original site they will get redirected to the correct one. This will keep your customers coming to your website and keep your page rank. Always use a 301 redirect that is permanent. If you use a 302 redirect that is temporary this could do some damage to your SEO.

When using the 301 redirect, it will redirect every page on your site to the correct page on the new website so you won’t lose any web traffic. Some just redirect it to the main homepage, but it’s better to make them all direct to the most relevant page you have on your new site.

Another option you can do in this process is while you’re redesigning your new site, go ahead and move your old site to the new URL. When you have the new design ready to be put up, go ahead and change it. This might affect your rankings for a small time on Google, but it shows them that you are just moving your domain name and not some outsider who is trying to bank on your built-up credibility.

If you do these things, then you should have no problem with Google recognizing your new site as the correct version of your old one and will keep your page rank and SEO in place. Remember to keep your old domain name and use a 301 redirect and to have your company’s old design on the new one while waiting for the new one to be completed.