Say No to Url Shortening for Better SEO

As stated earlier today url shortening services are not seo friendly. Many third party twitter addons will automatically shorten a url which is something you do not want.

So to avoid this I use a popular plugin called WP to Twitter . This can be downloaded, then uploaded to your server or automatically installed via your WordPress backend. I personally use the automatic install feature but either way gets the job done.

Within the settings you can set it to the following, do not shorten urls. Here is how.  Once you activate the plugin click on the settings tab within WordPress found in the left navigation panel. Scroll down to WP -> Twitter and click on it. This will open the WP to Twitter configuration menu. Under the basic settings and under the heading ‘Choose your short URL service (account settings below)’ in the drop down box make sure you select ‘Don’t Shorten URLs’

Under the ‘Account Settings’ tab which can be expanded to the right of the frame, enter your Twitter username and password. Then click the button called ‘Save Twitter Login Info’.

You are done and  it is simple as that – when you post a new article your title and link will be posted to your twitter account you designated.

One more thing under the ‘Basic Settings’ you will see ‘Text for new post updates: ‘ ‘New Post:’ #title# #url# .  Here you will want to delete the words ‘New Post:’  The only thing in the input boxes should be #title# #url#. This will give you a chance to post longer title’s and links.  This is simply unneeded wording the addon developer thought would be useful.

If you have not heard of Ping.fm then you are truly missing out. Ping FM allows you to update multiply blogs and social networking websites at once. By default a url shortening service is used. Like I stated earlier you will want to bypass this setting.

Here is how…If you go into Default settings you simply uncheck the box called ‘Shorten links in posts to automatically use full urls’.

Another way to do this is stated deeper within Ping.fm settings. This can be found at Ping.FM Wiki Posting Links help guide.

When you post correctly formatted links to your social networks, Ping.fm will take the link and automatically shorten it to shorten the overall length of your posted message.  Links shorter than 20 characters will not be shortened.

If you don’t want a link shortened, there are two ways to prevent it:

* Prepending links with a * tells ping.fm not to shorten it. (ex: *http://ping.fm/)

* Disable link shortening in your default settings found here: http://ping.fm/settings/default/

If you have social bookmarking enabled but don’t want a specific url to be bookmarked, prepend it with a “-” (ex: -http://ping.fm/)

Remember all rules still apply to twitter meaning the tweet must not be longer than 140-160 character long. So when you craft your title make sure it is short and to the point. Drop your keyword once and a secondary keyword if you can fit it.

With that this is Scot Manaher signing off. Learn more on Friday when we cover more on url shortening and twitter seo.

If you have not checked out our latest break news about Shawn Hogan admitting to the use of blackhat SEO techniques then check it out now. Looks like Shawn will be facing some jail time, stiff penalties and fines for cookie stuffing. Glad to see the Justice system is working as intended.

About Scot Manaher

Scot Manaher has written 111 post in this blog.

Scot is a blogger that loves writing about SEO, Internet Marketing and Work at Home opportunities. He owns and operates Niche Website Strategy and the Web Content Course system. He is also the Marketing Manager for The Content Authority which is a premier article writing service.

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