SEOs have spent the improved part of 15 years telling clients to keep bit.ly links out of item that matters. The case against them goes akin this. A generic abbreviated nexus hides the brand and the keywords that a audience would alternatively see in the URL, it makes group suspicious, and it hands authority of your links to person else.
A new Bitly study of 1,507 Americans says that case is fractional right. But the fractional SEOs have been ignoring is costing additional clicks than the fractional we keep arguing about.
Jenny Coppola, Bitly’s elder director of brand and content, published “The Click Expectation Report” on the Bitly blog on Sept. 29. It draws on 1,006 U.S. consumers and 501 U.S. marketers and creators surveyed between July 27 and Aug. 5, 2026.
Yes, a nexus administration business ran a study that concludes you need nexus management. I’ll arrive rear to that. But the person data inner the study is additional helpful to SEO, paid media, and social teams than the revenue throw wrapped about it, and it’s value study before your next preparedness meeting.
What SEOs Got Right, And What The Data Adds
Start alongside the part of the old disagreement that holds up. When Bitly asked consumers what makes them hesitate before clicking a link, 23% named generic shorteners that conceal the brand’s name.
That’s a genuine cost. It additionally sits near the base of the list. Safety or safety concerns concerning the URL topped it at 57%, followed by links that awareness akin clickbait (52%), vague descriptions of anywhere the nexus goes (44%), and a mismatch between a creator’s customary satisfied and the destination (42%).
Long URLs packed alongside tracking characters bothered 28% of consumers. That’s five points additional than generic shorteners, which is inner the survey’s border of error, so call it a tie. The UTM-heavy URLs many of us paste into social posts to defend attribution appearance no improved to consumers than the bit.ly links we inform clients to avoid.
On the another flank of the ledger, 48% of consumers stated a tradition tagged abbreviated nexus builds the acknowledgment that makes them comfortable clicking. That was the top aspect in the survey, onward of individual rely in the brand or creator sharing the nexus (44%) and apparent copy explaining anywhere the nexus leads (43%).
The nexus equity exception was answered a lengthy period ago. In 2011, Google’s Matt Cutts stated in a Webmaster Help video that shorteners using 301 redirects continue PageRank to the destination akin any another 301, as Search Engine Journal reported at the time.
The ownership exception motionless has teeth. Google announced in 2024 that its own goo.gl abbreviated links would halt operating on Aug. 25, 2025, and afterward reversed way weeks before the deadline for links that motionless saw activity. If Google came that near to breaking its own abbreviated links, any vendor can interrupt yours. To me, that argues for a tagged abbreviated domain your business owns, fairly than a vendor’s domain hard-coded into all article you’ve always published.
See also: When Direct Means We Don’t Know: CMOs Need To Rethink Attribution In AI Search
The Bigger Leak Is The Homepage
Now the fractional SEOs have been missing.
79% of consumers stated they had abandoned an act since a social nexus sent them to a generic homepage alternatively of the merchandise featured in the post. Only 8% of consumers anticipate a social video nexus to district on a homepage, during 61% anticipate a merchandise page.
And yet 39% of marketers and 30% of creators named the generic homepage as a top destination for their social video links. Across the two groups, 34% admitted their own social video links normally path there.
The remainder of the abandonment catalog says akin a specialized SEO audit. Excessive redirects or browser safety warnings drove distant 76% of consumers. Another 76% walked whenever the promo code promised in the article wasn’t on the page. Forced app installs or app shop redirects disbursal 69%, pages that weren’t built for mobile disbursal 51%, and the incorrect region, language, or prosperity disbursal 49%.
The mobile figure splits sharply by age. Only 41% of Baby Boomers stated a non-mobile leaf made them abandon, compared alongside 61% to 62% of Millennials and Gen Z. iOS users were additional apt than Android users to bail on a leaf that wasn’t built for mobile (57% vs. 47%).
My perspective is that anyone who has asserted concerning search intent should acknowledge this immediately. A homepage at the end of a merchandise nexus is an intent mismatch, alongside a thumb tap position in for the query. We would never obtain it in paid search, anywhere Google rates landing leaf experience on how applicable the leaf is to the group who click the ad. We obtain it on social media all day since nobody on the SEO squad owns those links.
The redirect finding deserves a second appearance too, since a abbreviated nexus adds a hop. If that hop leads to a tracking redirect, which leads to a local redirect, which leads to an app shop prompt, you’ve built exactly the sequence that 76% of consumers say makes them leave.
See also: How To Design URL Structures For AI Retrieval, Not Just Rankings
93% Are Withholding Clicks On Purpose
This is the figure I keep coming rear to.
93% of consumers stated they had avoided clicking a nexus on purpose, fair to keep their algorithm from serving them additional of that content. 43% stated they do it continually or often, and among Gen Z and Millennials that fig rises to 45%.
Click-through charge has continually stood in for interest. This study suggests a ample portion of curious group decrease to click exactly since they cognize the click volition be counted and used to form what they see next.
That fits what SEOs already see in zero-click search and AI answers, anywhere group get what they need without visiting a site. Clicks were never a spotless measure of interest, and group are now deciding how they desire to be profiled one tap at a time. Low click-through can sit alongside elevated attention. If CTR is the lone indication in your report, you’re missing several of the group you really reached.
Trust Depends On Who Shares The Link, And Where
LinkedIn was the phase consumers trusted most whenever deciding whether to click a link, at 19%. YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit tied at 17% each. With a border of error of affirmative or minus 3.1 points on the person sample, that’s a four-way statistical tie, and the general ranking matters far small than the splits underneath it.
Instagram was Gen Z’s top choice at 33%, nearly twice the 18% of Millennials who stated the same. LinkedIn climbed alongside age, becoming the top choice for Gen X (22%) and Baby Boomers (24%). TikTok cut at all generational step, from 12% among Gen Z to 2% among Boomers. Reddit belonged to Millennials, at 21%.
That Reddit figure should capture the eye of anyone tracking anywhere AI answers drag their citations. The phase that a ample piece of 30- and 40-somethings trusts for links is additionally one whose visibility in AI answers SEOs already track closely, and that overlap is value watching.
Who shares the nexus matters as much as where. Consumers trusted company brands additional than autonomous creators for six of the seven nexus types in the survey. The widest gap was app or application downloads, anywhere brands drew 88% of rely and creators 12%. Curated asset lists were the one exception, splitting evenly at 50/50.
The applicable peruse is simple. People rely a brand to grip a transaction and rely a creator to item them toward item value their time. If your creator program sends followers direct to an app download, you’re asking creators to expend rely they don’t have.
Attribution Is Broken From Both Ends
Marketers and creators told Bitly they anticipate links in social profiles and satisfied to run an average of 39% of their income complete the next 12 months. That’s a lot of income to forecast from a conduit most of them can’t completely measure.
Difficulty tracking traffic throughout channels and formats was the top difficulty overall, cited by 36% of marketers and creators (41% of marketers, 30% of creators). Connecting phase analytics to website or run data tripped up 29% of marketers but lone 17% of creators. In-app browsers stripping tracking parameters or cookies hit creators harder, 27% vs. 18% for marketers.
The two groups additionally measure differently. Marketers lean most on native nexus tracking inner social media administration platforms (39%). Creators lean most on post-purchase or post-signup surveys that merely ask customers how they established the merchandise (33%). Marketers use manual UTM parameters nearly three times as frequently as creators, 23% vs. 8%, and 10% of creators and 3% of marketers aren’t measuring their links at all.
For SEOs, the misplaced social clicks don’t vanish. When an in-app browser drops the referrer or the parameters, those visits lean to display up in analytics as straightforward or unattributed traffic, which muddies all conduit study that sits next to organic.
Read The Methodology Before You Quote The Numbers
The study was fielded through an opt-in online investigation panel, and the results are unweighted. Bitly gives margins of error “assuming a uncomplicated random sample,” which an opt-in panel isn’t. An AAPOR project power on online panels advised rear in 2010 that “claims of ‘representativeness’ have to be avoided” for this benevolent of sample.
A few another particulars are value knowing before you put a glide in forefront of a client. The assertion that tradition domain links see a 2.3x lift in clicks comes from Bitly’s revenue copy, not from the survey, and the study doesn’t say how it was measured. The FAQ cites figures, specified as 34% of marketers relying on nexus administration tools and 29% using link-in-bio pages, that don’t appear in the build of the report. And the infographic describes the 79% as abandoning “a purchase,” during the content says “an action.” Use the text.
None of that makes the findings useless. It makes them directional. Quote them as “Bitly’s study found,” not “consumers say,” and you’ll be on firm ground.
How To Apply This To Your Strategy
You don’t need to buy item to act on this report. Here’s anywhere I’d start.
1. Audit anywhere your social links really land. Pull all nexus in your bios, pinned posts, video descriptions, and latest paid social ads into one sheet, alongside the destination URL next to each. Then inspect your analytics landing leaf study for social sessions. Any nexus that promises a merchandise and delivers the homepage gets repointed to the merchandise or category page, and any mobile app nexus gets a profound nexus alongside a web fallback alternatively of an app shop detour.
2. Put your abbreviated links on a domain you own. If your squad uses abbreviated links at all, move them to a tagged abbreviated domain or subdomain your business controls, whichever vendor you pick. Keep the sequence to a sole 301 hop, tuck the UTM parameters rearward the abbreviated nexus so the apparent URL stays clean, and ask the vendor in penning how you’d export and repoint your links if you always leave.
3. Tag brand traffic and creator traffic differently. Write a UTM convention that separates links your brand posts from links creators share, alongside the creator’s grip in a accordant field. Then open those links inner the Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn in-app browsers and verify the parameters last the trip, since the study says they frequently don’t.
4. Borrow the creators’ attribution survey. Add a “How did you comprehend concerning us?” inquiry to checkout or signup. It’s the measure method creators rely most, and it catches the visits that analytics records under direct. Report it next to branded hunt volume and straightforward traffic, so a low CTR doesn’t conceal the 93% who saw your article and chose not to click.
The Net-Net
I’ve been skeptical of vendor research for as lengthy as I’ve covered this industry, and this study earns several of that skepticism. Every advice in it leads to a Bitly feature.
But the person data underneath points location SEOs should already awareness at home. Send group to the leaf they were promised, from a origin they recognize, and be honest concerning what your analytics can’t see. That’s hunt intent and trust, applied to the nexus in a TikTok bio alternatively of a blue nexus on leaf one.
We were correct to distrust the generic abbreviated link. We were incorrect to halt caring anywhere it went.
More Resources:
- Everyone Is Quoting The Same Number And Getting Different Answers
- AI Referrals Are Recreating The Oldest Mistake In Conversion Optimization
- Designing A Measurement Framework Before You Touch GA4
Featured Image: Viktoriia_M/Shutterstock
