Twitter Link Redirects, clarifying

Marketing
1

Some links on twitter redirect while others don’t.

Is this by choice only - like for tracking twitter hits for tweeters - or is some of this imposed by twitter for posting self links, etc.

2

[font=verdana]Not sure what you mean by that. As far as I can tell, all links in tweets are t.co shortened links. That may not be the URL displayed in the visible tweet, but nevertheless it’s the URL that is given in the hyperlink. Additionally, some people use their own URL shorteners, particularly if using automated posting tools, which are most commonly bit.ly and fb.me. But these will still be replaced by a t.co in the href=“…”

So you might have one of these:

<a href="http://t.co/123456">website.com/shorturl</a>
<a href="http://t.co/123456">website.com/longurlthatgo...</a>
<a href="http://t.co/123456">bit.ly/A1b2c3</a>

[/font]

3

So its okay to post links as you normally would when you tweet, as far as formatting is concerned?

4

[font=verdana]I have set up redirects so that I can give a short form of the URL for any page, and I use these in tweets because 99% of the time it keeps the URL short enough that it is shown intact, and I would rather have a working URL on my own domain displayed than either a truncated URL or a third-party shortened URL, in terms of presentation and usability.

Because Twitter is clever about it, you are only charged for the character count of the shortened URL (19, I think), no matter what URL you use and how it is displayed.[/font]

5

Nice tip Stevie D.

6