Short Links

A short link is one of your tracking links reduced to a single short address, like https://go.yourbrand.com/s/1A7kP9mQ2x4f.

Your normal tracking URL carries everything in the address: affiliate id, traffic source, sub-ids, campaign, and any extra parameters you added. That runs to around 150 characters. It's fine inside an ad platform and useless in an SMS, a QR code, a bio link, or anywhere a person reads the address before deciding to click. A short link moves all of it to Routy's side, so what you hand out is about thirty characters and the click is tracked exactly as it would have been.

A short link always points at one of your own tracking links. You can't aim one at an arbitrary web address, because Routy runs these domains and a general-purpose shortener on them would be an open door for abuse in your name. If you want an address made of words you choose, like /click/summer-sale, that's a cloaked link, which needs a custom domain. A short link's address is generated, carries no meaning, and works whether or not you have a domain of your own.

• A click recorded as an ordinary click, against the same destination, traffic source, sub-id A, sub-id B, click id and campaign you set when you created the link. Your reports don't change.
• An address that resolves the second it's created. There's no propagation delay, so a link can be created and clicked in the same minute.
• One call per link, or a bulk call. Each item in a bulk request carries an idempotency key you choose, such as campaign-42/row-1183, so a large request that times out half way through can be sent again without creating a second copy of everything. You get a result per item saying what was created, what already existed, and what failed and why.
• Your own short domain on the address if you've set one up, and a Routy host otherwise. Add a domain later and the links you've already published keep working.
• The destination and the tracking parameters editable after publication. The address itself never changes, because the copies you sent can't be changed with it.
• No default expiry. A link you create without one works until you expire it. Expiring stops it redirecting immediately and keeps the record, so it still shows in your history.
• A list you can filter by traffic source, destination link, status, the idempotency key you supplied, creation date, and whether the link still works. Results are paged.

Per-link click analytics aren't in this first release. The clicks are in your normal reports, under the traffic source, sub-ids and campaign the link carries.

Creating one

You give Routy what you'd give the link generator: the link it should point at, the traffic source the clicks count against, any tracking parameters you want baked in, and optionally when it should stop working. You get back the short address and an id to find it again.

Sub-id A, sub-id B and your click id are capped at 100 characters. Anything longer is refused at creation with a message saying so. The cap isn't arbitrary: a value over 100 characters is discarded when the click is recorded, so accepting it would hand you a link that redirects correctly while those values never reach your reports. Your own extra parameters aren't affected.

Publishing one

The tracking you set at creation is what gets recorded, always. Affid, trafficSourceId, ts, bi, PA, PB, cid, clickId, camp, offer, subid and dyn are fixed on the link and ignored if someone appends them to the address. You hand these links to other people, so if the address could rewrite attribution, anyone holding the link could corrupt your reports.

Anything that isn't one of those reserved names passes through as sent and overrides a stored value of the same name. utm_source is the usual case, and it's where to put something you want to vary per send.

Testing and inspection behave as they do on any Routy link. ?test=1 keeps the click out of your reports, ?debug=1 shows what the router did, and ?rp=1, ?h=1, ?cc= and ?testlink=1 work the same way here as on a cloaked link, because they describe the visit rather than the link. A short link can't be created permanently in proxy mode, since proxy returns a diagnostic page instead of sending the visitor anywhere, and a link fixed to it would never redirect a single recipient. A proxy value sent at creation is ignored rather than rejected, so you can reuse a link-generator payload as it stands.

Choosing the address

Routy serves short links from the shortest host your account is entitled to. GET /v1/short-links/domains returns the list with one marked as the default, and passing domain at creation picks a different one. A host that isn't on your list is refused rather than swapped for one that is, so you always know which address your link got.

Your link works on the address it was issued on and on any tracking domain of your own. Swapping the host by hand gives a "link not available" page. If you need links on a different address, create them there.

A link that has expired, been blocked, or never existed all show that same page, and it doesn't say which of the three it was, because that page is also what an address-guessing bot gets. Someone else's branded domain won't serve your link either, which stops a link of yours looking as though they sent it.

What it costs you

Short links count against your plan. If yours doesn't include them, creating one is refused with a quota message. Expired and blocked links don't use a slot. If every tracking domain assigned to your account has been retired, creating a short link fails and says so, and your account manager needs to assign a new one first.

SMS and messaging, QR codes on print and packaging, a bio link, a code read off a screen. A 150-character query string isn't usable in any of them, so the choice was to skip those placements or send the click through a third-party shortener, which puts the address on a domain you don't control and adds a hop that explains nothing in your Routy reports.

A long tracking URL also carries its parameters in the open, so anyone holding it can edit them: an SMS provider, a partner, someone pasting it into a group chat. With a short link the attribution sits on Routy's side and can't be changed from the address, so the reports you build on it reflect what you set.

And a published address is permanent while a destination isn't. A QR code on a printed insert can't be recalled, and a bio link that changes weekly costs you the audience that bookmarked it. Repointing or expiring a short link after it's out turns a paused offer or a renegotiated rate into an edit rather than a reprint.