Google Launches URL Shortener with SEO Impact

Google’s new URL shortening service, Goo.gl has just been launched to the public. Goo.gl comes with its own site (http://goo.gl) and some cool analytics.

http://goo.gl/1MC9 - They are especially helpful in applications that have character restrictions, like Twitter and its 140 character limit.

goo.gl has been incorporated into many Google products including News, Blogger, Maps, Picasa Web Albums, and Moderator. However, Google claims not to have overloaded it with too many features as they want goo.gl to be the most stable, most secure, and fastest URL shortener available on the web.

Google explains more on its Social Web Blog:

There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality.

Google claims there are three aspects that make goo.gl a stand out from other URL shorteners:

• Stability: goo.gl promises nearly 100% uptime making it a stable and robust product.
• Security: goo.gl features automatic spam detection and protects against malware & phishing based on the same type of filtering technology use in Gmail.
• Speed: has doubled in just over nine month since its first launch.

Google’s URL shortener could have an impact on your SEO and even the Google algorithm. From a link building perspective the act of merely sharing a link on social networks and the resulting click-through could carry benefits for the downstream website.

IF popular goo.gl could find itself a spot in the Google ranking algorithm and becomes a prime factor in real-time and regular search (although an ambitious thoughts for now).

What is most interesting is the demographic mining that shortening a URL with goo.gl will produce. While users are shortening a URL, Google will be tracking information from their Google account. Essentially, the URL shortener will be a “vote” (or Like) that’s passed along with some valuable demographic information when Google users are signed in.

Source: ineedhits.com