Google understands that there are reasons to use a 301 redirect and any cost can be negated. However, Google also says that a 301 redirect should be avoided unless necessary. I understand the need to short URL(s) for things like Twitter. This makes sense. However, URI paths and file names are important factors for ranking for keywords. Google echos this. If you need to use a shortend URL for redirect then use it. But for the actual web page, I would not use a shortend name at all. I would redirect to a URL/URI that represents your 2 or 3 most important keywords. Google sees the page URL/URI being redirected to and this is what Google indexes and not the shortend URL.

Hope this helps.

Google understands that there are reasons to use a 301 redirect and any cost can be negated. However, Google also says that a 301 redirect should be avoided unless necessary. I understand the need to short URL(s) for things like Twitter. This makes sense. However, URI paths and file names are important factors for ranking for keywords. Google echos this. If you need to use a shortend URL for redirect then use it. But for the actual web page, I would not use a shortend name at all. I would redirect to a URL/URI that represents your 2 or 3 most important keywords. Google sees the page URL/URI being redirected to and this is what Google indexes and not the shortend URL.