There has been a lot of discussion around the use of shortened URLs and whether URL shortening is a positive or negative practice for SEO and branding. The need for URL shortening evolved and became popular because of character limitations set forth by Twitter and other social media outlets. Lengthy URL addresses can take up a significant portion of the allotted characters within Twitter updates. To respond to this sudden need, URL shortening solutions were developed by companies including Bit.ly, TinyURL, Digg and Snurl.

There are several benefits to URL shortening. Because of the reduced character legnth, they are easier to place in status updates across social platforms and share virally. In addition to being easier to share, the services that provide URL shortening often offer real-time analytics so that you can see how much traffic a shortened link is getting. This is extremely beneficial for links that reside on a domain that you do not host or do not have analytics on.

However, there are several disadvantages that might outweigh the advantages depending on your goals for link sharing. There have been several suspicions that the use of some URL shortening services omit or diminish the link juice that would normally be passed to the linked page. Most shortened URLs use 301 redirects to drive traffic, which in theory, should pass link juice to the linked page. However, tests have been conducted by several SEO professionals that show value is not transferred. This may or may not be an issue, depending on how viral you want your link to become. If you just want your link to be shared on Twitter, the links are no-followed, which means value will not be transferred anyway. But if you think your link has the capability to be spread beyond Twitter, you could potentially be missing out on valuable inbound link juice by using a shortened URL.

In addition to diminished link value, the branding efforts that would normally be built by sharing a URL to your website are reduced by using a generic Bit.ly or TinyURL web address. The reduced visibility of your website’s domain may also result in fewer return visits to the page because shortened URLs are not typically as memorable as unique URLs.

You also have to keep in mind that many of the companies developing URL shortening services are small start-up companies. While some of the more well-known services will probably be around for a while, using URL shortening technology from a very new or small company may result in dead links to your website if the company goes out of business.

In short, there are benefits and disadvantages to shortening and sharing URLs through social outlets. Make sure you know what your goals are before you start promoting content and weigh the costs against the gains.