Considering My Own Shortened URLs - Any Issues?

[HuskyPup]

I've been considering for quite some time the idea of inserting on each specific product page my own shortened url. Currently most of my urls look like:

example.com/country/widget/specific-widget.html

I would show on the product page my company's own 4 letter acronym:

LLLL.tld/abc123

Can anyone think of any obvious reason why there may be any issues doing this apart from confusing G even more?

[goodroi]

url shorteners use either a 302 or 301 redirect. i think we can all agree that massive 302 redirects can create headaches. as for 301 redirects, they do not pass 100% of the link pop. also multiple redirects can cause issues.

not to mention you are making your main site semi-dependent on another domain, which you might unexpectedly lose control of (see libya taking back certain .ly websites)

personally i probably wouldnt do it. for most sites i do not see enough benefit. i can think of one or two unique situations were this could be a good idea.

[HuskyPup]

Yep, I just knew I was missing something basic!

[Planet13]

@goodroi

as for 301 redirects, they do not pass 100% of the link pop. also multiple redirects can cause issues.

Could you elaborate on these two issues?

What circumstances cause a 301 not to pass 100% page rank?

How / when do multiple 301s cause issues?

Thanks in advance.

[goodroi]

hi planet13,

according to matt cutts (and my own personal experience) there is some link evaporation going on with 301 redirects. it is not a huge loss. i believe this first became public knowledge when eric enge interviewed matt cutts in march 2010.

[netmeg]

I use 'em. Some urls are just too freakin' long for email, twitter, etc. Specially on CMS or Ecommerce packages that tack on lotsa categories.

Right now I'm using a service with one of my own short domains; it is my hope to "roll my own" before too long - there are a number of PHP packages out there, but so far I haven't been able to get one to work on my server. I know it's out there. I just haven't found it yet.

[BradleyT]

So wait, page A of your site has a link to page B of your site and you want to use a shortener for that link?

[netmeg]

Oh, I missed that. No, I don't think I'd use them on internal links.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Just for reference, here's the 301 Redirect Means "Some Loss of PageRank" - says Mr Cutts [webmasterworld.com] thread.

[Alex_TJ]

We use our own special shortened URLs e.g. ourdomain.tld/BandBWF which redirects to ourdomain.tld/big-and-blue-widget-foo.
It's not on our website but for our brochures, both printed and PDFs to help type-ins and get people straight to the relevant part of our site.
Is that what you're talking about Husky?