URL Shortening

Overview

A short link is an alias that points at an existing dynamic link. It lives on the same project subdomain ({subdomain}.linksense.net/{slug}) and inherits the parent link's routing, social preview, deep-link config, and analytics. The only difference is the path: shorter, brandable, memorable.

Short Links vs Custom Paths

Both feel similar but serve different roles:

• Custom paths are part of a dynamic link's identity. One per link.
• Short links are campaign-style aliases. A link can have many; delete and recreate to rotate.

Both share the slug namespace within a project — you cannot have a short link with the same path as a sibling custom path (or vice versa).

Creating in the Dashboard

REST API

A short link is an alias attached to an existing dynamic link — one slug per link, stored on the link itself. There is no separate short-link resource to create or list: you attach a slug to a link and later detach it. Authenticate with an API key (ls_live_…); attaching requires the Pro plan, and calls from Starter accounts return 403 FORBIDDEN_PLAN.

Attach

curl -X POST https://linksense.net/api/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/links/$LINK_ID/short-link \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "slug": "promo" }'
 
# The body is optional — omit it entirely to get an auto-generated slug:
curl -X POST https://linksense.net/api/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/links/$LINK_ID/short-link \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_API_KEY"

Successful responses return 201 Created with the slug and its fully-formed short_url:

{
  "data": {
    "dynamic_link_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "slug": "promo",
    "short_url": "https://acme.linksense.net/promo",
    "short_slug_created_at": "2026-05-25T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

Detach

curl -X DELETE https://linksense.net/api/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/links/$LINK_ID/short-link \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_API_KEY"

Reading the current slug

There is no short-link list endpoint. The attached slug is a field on the link itself — read short_slug and short_slug_created_at from any links response, and filter the list by exact path with ?custom_path= when you need to check whether one is taken.

curl "https://linksense.net/api/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/links?page=1&limit=10" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_API_KEY"
 
# Is "promo" already taken? An empty data array means it is free.
curl "https://linksense.net/api/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/links?custom_path=promo" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_API_KEY"

SDK Resolve

Native apps can expand a short URL into its parent dynamic link payload via the SDK resolve endpoint. The wire contract is live today; convenience methods (resolve(shortURL)) ship in the next minor SDK release per platform.

curl -X POST https://linksense.net/api/sdk/v1/short-links/resolve \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKSENSE_SDK_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "slug": "promo" }'

The response contains the slug echo plus the parent dynamic link in the same shape returned by GET /api/sdk/v1/links/{linkId} — so SDKs can feed it straight into existing routing logic.

Analytics

Clicks on a short URL roll up to the parent dynamic link's analytics. The Top Links table shows a "Via short" badge per row with the count and most-used slug, so you can see which campaigns are driving traffic without breaking apart the parent link's totals.

Slug Rules & Collisions

• 3–20 characters
• Lowercase a–z, digits 0–9, single - or _ between alphanumerics
• No leading or trailing separators
• Reserved words (e.g. dashboard, api) are rejected
• Unique within a project across both short_slug and custom_path — one namespace, two columns on dynamic_links

Collisions return 409 SLUG_EXISTS. Auto-generated slugs retry on collision; the keyspace (1.6M combinations per project at length 4) keeps that practically free.

Pricing

URL shortening is a Pro feature. There is no per-link cap beyond the standard project link limit. Starter accounts see an upgrade prompt in the dashboard and receive 403 FORBIDDEN_PLAN from the REST API.