: How to submit shortened URLs to Google so that they are included in the index I am working on a project to create a URL shortener. I have successfully gotten it to create short URLs, but

@Michele947

To build on Stephen Ostermiller's answer, there are (at least) two things you can try to persuade Google to index your short URLs:


Use 302 redirects instead of 301. A 302 redirect is "temporary", and hints to search engines that the original, unredirected URL is the stable and authoritative one. In particular, while the details of Google's ranking algorithms are obviously not public, it's generally accepted that 302 redirects don't pass "PageRank" to the target page, at least not to the same extent as 301 redirects do.

Obviously, there's only so much you can do this way — you can't just "steal" another page's ranking simply by making a 302 redirect to it — but if your short URL is the most commonly linked URL for the page, and you're using a 302 redirect instead of 301, it's likely that Google may indeed show the short URL in search results.
Add a rel=canonical link to the target page head section, linking back to your short URL. This is a much stronger endorsement; it's basically the target page telling Google "Don't show this URL in search results, but show that short URL instead."

This should pretty much guarantee that your short URL will show up in search results (at least assuming that you also use a 302 redirect — having a canonical link tag pointing to a 301 redirect might give weird or unexpected results, since the link and the redirect will basically contradict each other). Of course, this method is only possible if you can actually control the target page.

Vote Up Vote Down

@BetL925

Just because a URL is in Google's index doesn't mean that it was submitted through webmaster tools or search console. Google includes most URLs in the index only because it finds links to them on other sites.

Most of the time Google won't index a redirecting URL (including a shortened URL.) Usually Google prefers the destination. If the redirect URL has a lot of links and the destination is not crawlable Google may choose to index the redirect instead. If the redirect URL is more authoritative (like a home page URL that redirects to a deep page), Google may also choose to index the shortened URL.

Site search results are also very different than other types of search results. Google is much more likely to show poor quality pages in a site search result than in normal search. Part of why you are finding some redirect URLs for goo.gl is because you are using site search. Those URLs are very unlikely to show up for normal search phrases.

If you create a URL shortener, you won't be able to get many of your shortened URLs indexed by Google.

Vote Up Vote Down