There’s been a lot of discussion of late over link penalties, and which social platforms penalize links in posts, as a means to keep users from tapping away to other apps.
Because that’s engagement that they could keep in-house, and why should social platforms give publishers the capacity to simply steal away their audience?
Well, social platforms, of course, also serve as information-sharing tools, and that process logically benefits from external links. But over time, more and more platforms have seemingly implemented penalties for including links in posts, or made it impossible to do, which reduces the value of social apps for anyone looking to drive traffic back to their own sites.
So where do each of the big social apps stand on links and link penalties?
Here’s what we know, based on their own statements and data notes.
Facebook has not directly stated that its algorithm penalizes link posts, though link posts have become less and less prevalent in the app over time, reducing referral traffic.
According to Facebook’s own data, more than 95% of the posts displayed in user feeds don’t include an external link, and that percentage has been increasing over time.
So while Facebook may not be directly reducing the reach of link posts, it is reducing their prevalence, in favor of AI-recommended post insertion (predominantly Reels), and reduced organic reach for Page updates.
Facebook has also been moving away from news content, and this is another impediment to link reach.
So whether Facebook’s algorithm directly reduces the reach of link posts or not, they are seeing far less reach, and thus engagement, than they did once before.
Instagram doesn’t let you post links in captions, so it’s never really been great for driving referral traffic either way. It does, however, enable you to share links in Stories, and those are, at least in theory, not reach restricted, though they are only distributed to your followers.
Getting reach beyond your established audience for links is difficult on IG either way, but there’s not much evidence to suggest that it’s actively limiting external links. I guess, because it doesn’t have to, being they’re already a minor factor.
Threads
There’s been a lot of speculation as to whether Threads punishes posts that include an external link, but according to Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri, that’s not happening.
Some users still believe that it is actively limiting the reach of link posts, but according to Mosseri, that’s purely driven by user behavior, not direct limitations imposed by the app.
X
X does limit the reach of posts that include an external link.
X owner Elon Musk has repeatedly noted this, saying that this is both due to algorithmic updates and user behavior:
Since the algorithm recommends posts based on how much time people spend on them, both video and text content posted on this platform naturally get boosted more than links off platform, as the time spent on a link is short
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2023
X has also been found to be throttling links to certain publications. So overall, links are not welcome on X. Because X would prefer that more people share their thoughts direct in the app.
Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2024
TikTok
Like IG, TikTok also has limited capacity to support links, as you can’t include URLs in descriptions or comments. That means that TikTok doesn’t have to restrict the reach of links, because you can’t really add them anyway, and there’s no evidence to suggest that TikTok restricts links included via your profile bio.
Unless you’re linking to an eCommerce platform, like Amazon, which TikTok sees as a competitor. TikTok won’t allow you to link to these platforms.
Snapchat
Snapchat also doesn’t provide much room for links, at least within public posts, and there’s no reach penalty for links posted within promoted Snaps.
Snap does restrict some links to other social apps, and it won’t allow you to link to pages that don’t load within its browser. But theoretically at least, you can post links in Stories with no reach penalty.
That said, user engagement may be lower on public Snaps with links, and that may organically limit link posts.
LinkedIn doesn’t officially restrict external links, but it did make a change earlier this year which reduces the link preview size in posts, unless brands pay to promote them.
So, if you don’t pay to promote a link post, you get the smaller image preview, but if you pay, you get the more prominent one, which would drive more clicks.
Various external studies have also shown that link posts do get significantly less reach in the app.
So while it’s not confirmed, there are seemingly several measures within LinkedIn that’ll limit the reach of your link posts.
So, overall, there are no social platforms that are entirely open to links. Well, other than Bluesky, which sees external links as a key element of its approach.
That’s another reason why journalists are so big on the Twitter alternative at the moment, and if Bluesky does become a major app, that could be a big benefit.
But other than that, most social apps are not overly keen to help you drive traffic to your sites.