All Shortened URLs Are Not Malicious Content

In the discussion of the Referer Spam problem, we are starting to see the obvious questionWhy does Google just not block all traffic from "bit.ly"?and this does seem logical, at first glance.

Unfortunately, shortened URLs are used for legitimate purposes. "bit.ly", for instance, is used by Twitter, to shorten all URLs used in their tweets. I, personally, have several tweets which lead to various articles in this blog.

Bloggers - Enjoy the community experience - add a Followers gadget! http://bit.ly/4tplWe

This is a tweet which I wrote to point out that Followers is a far more versatile tool when you provide a Followers gadget, rather than requiring your readers to use the "Follow" link in the navbar.

So "bit.ly" inlinks may reflect legitimate traffic from actual readers, and from potential Followers.

The jury is still out on "goo.gl" though.

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