FlashLink PROD

Documentation › Links › Link options

Link options

Password, opening date, click limit, redirection by country, language, time or device, A/B test, share preview.

Open a link and press Options. All of these work on the short link and on its portal page.

# Password

Visitors must type the password before they are redirected (or see the portal). 4 to 64 characters. Once unlocked, a browser stays unlocked for 12 hours. After 8 wrong tries in 10 minutes, the visitor must wait.

  • Changing the password locks everybody out again.
  • Tick Remove to take the password off.
  • The password is stored scrambled and never shown again, not even to you.

A password protects the page, not the destination: whoever knows the destination address can still open it directly.

# Opening date

Before this date and time, visitors see a “not available yet” page with the date. Useful to prepare a poster or a campaign in advance.

# Click limit

The link stops after this many visits (1 to 1,000,000). The counter is shown in the panel; changing the limit starts it again from zero. Visits of link-preview robots (messaging apps) are not counted.

# By device

Send phones, tablets and computers to different addresses (for example an app store for phones, a web page for computers). Empty fields use the main destination.

# iPhone and Android

Two more fields in the same section: one address for iPhone and iPad (iOS), one for Android. Handy to send each visitor to the right app store. They win over the general phone / tablet / computer fields.

# By country

One line per country, the two-letter code then the address: FR https://example.fr/. Up to 10 countries. A visitor's country is guessed from their connection and is approximate.

# By language

One line per language, the two-letter code then the address: fr https://example.org/fr. Up to 8 languages. The language is the one set in the visitor's browser (the first language of their list that you have a line for).

# By day and time

Show a different address at certain hours (for example the shop page during opening hours, a “closed” page at night). Choose a time zone, then one line per window: days, hours, address.

  • Days: 1 is Monday, 7 is Sunday. Write 1-5 (Monday to Friday), 6,7, or 1,3-5.
  • Hours: 09:00-18:00. A window may cross midnight (22:00-02:00): the days then name the day it starts.
  • Example: 1-5 09:00-18:00 https://example.org/shop. Up to 4 windows; outside of them the other rules apply.

# Campaign labels (UTM)

Under the destination field (when you create a link or change its destination), Campaign labels adds utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to the end of the address. The statistics tool of the destination site (Google Analytics, Matomo...) then knows where visitors came from. FlashLink itself does not read them: it only writes them for you.

# Share preview

What WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack... show under a shared link: a title (100 characters), a description (200) and a picture (an https address). Only the robots that build these cards see it; visitors are still sent straight to the destination.

# Private note

A free text (500 characters) to remember what a link is for or who asked for it. Only you see it (and the people the link is shared with); it is never shown to visitors, and the administration does not read the notes of other accounts. It is copied when you duplicate the link.

# A/B group

List 2 to 5 addresses, one per line, each with an optional weight from 1 to 100 ("https://a.example.org 3"). Visitors are shared at random between them according to the weights, which is handy to compare two pages. The main destination stays the fallback. In the statistics, Addresses of the group shows the clicks of each one.

# When the link has ended

Instead of the standard “not found” page, a closed, expired or exhausted link can show your own message (300 characters, plain text) or send visitors to another address. If both are given, the address wins.

# Which rule wins

  1. Password and opening date are checked first.
  2. Then the click limit.
  3. Then the split test (A/B), if there is one.
  4. Then, the first case that matches the visitor: 1 country, 2 language, 3 day and time, 4 iPhone / Android, 5 phone / tablet / computer.
  5. Otherwise the main destination.

In the console these options are grouped in foldable sections, in that same order. A section that is already in use shows “on” and opens by itself.

Every address in the options goes through the same safety checks as the destination.