Moz has long been a leader in providing marketers with data, which was used in a variety of ways to help improve ad and SEO campaigns. In the past they have relied largely on data from Twitter to rank web pages’ social media relevance, but going forward that won’t be the case, at least not to the same extent. Bitly has announced that they will be providing Moz with data and click tracking technology, which will include what many consider to be the most authoritative data of this type available.
Bitly is the most popular URL shortening service on the web today, with over 600 million active profiles. Most people use this type of service to post links on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Moz will be able to use this data to get a much more accurate picture of what is happening in the social media world, which they can then pass on to their customers.
Moz co-founder Rand Rishkin said, “The Bitly click dataset is hands down the broadest and most authoritative available to anyone looking for information on how their content and brand is performing across the web.”
Bitly CEO Mark Josephson commented, “I think people sometimes take Bitly for granted as the shortener for the web.” He went on to say, however, that he wants to change the perception that this is the only value they provide. The data they gather while shortening URLs is extremely valuable, and they want to start putting that data to better use.
Bitly made the announcement that they would be providing this data to Moz from the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. This is one of the leading technology events of the year, which is often used to make significant announcements such as this.
