Link analytics for every short link
Track every click and scan in real time — location, device, browser, referrer, and more. Bot traffic is filtered out and nothing relies on cookies, so your numbers are accurate and privacy-friendly by default.
What is link analytics?
Link analytics is the tracking and reporting of how people interact with your links — how many clicks and scans each one gets over time, and the details behind every click: where it came from, what device and browser was used, and what page or channel referred it. Because every short link routes through our redirect, each click is a server-side event we can measure without cookies or scripts on your destination page.
"Link tracking" and "link analytics" describe the same thing from two angles — tracking is the logging of each click, analytics is the reporting that turns those clicks into dimensions and trends you can act on.
Every dimension, on every link
One click is a rich event. Here's what U2L captures automatically — no tagging required.
Clicks & timeline
Total and unique clicks over time, updated in real time so you see a campaign respond as it happens.
Location
Country, region, and city for every click, resolved at the edge from the visitor's IP.
Device, browser & OS
Mobile, desktop, or tablet, plus browser and operating system — spot a broken mobile experience fast.
Referrer & source
See which page, app, or channel sent each click, so you know what's actually working.
QR scans
Scans run the same pipeline, tagged as scans, so you can compare offline QR performance against online clicks.
Language
The visitor's primary language, useful for planning localization and international campaigns.
How link tracking works
A short link points at our redirect server, not directly at your destination. When someone clicks or scans it, the server logs the request — the IP address for location, the user-agent for device, browser, and OS, the referrer for the traffic source, and the timestamp for the timeline — then forwards the visitor to the real destination in a fraction of a second. Because it all happens server-side, tracking works even when the destination has no analytics, no cookies, and no scripts of yours.
Accurate by default: bots counted separately
Automated traffic is now more than half of all web traffic, and link-preview crawlers from Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage, and search engines hit your links every time they're shared. Left in, they inflate your numbers. U2L identifies bot and crawler traffic and counts it in its own bucket, so the clicks you see are the humans who actually engaged.
Privacy-friendly — no cookies, no consent banner
Link analytics is first-party and aggregate. Data is collected at your own redirect, there are no cross-site tracking cookies, and the reports are counts by dimension — not profiles of individuals. That makes it GDPR- and CCPA-friendly by design, generally needs no cookie-consent banner, and keeps working as third-party cookies disappear. You learn where, when, and how people clicked — never who they are.
Link analytics FAQ
What is link analytics?+
Link analytics is the tracking and reporting of how people interact with your links — total and unique clicks over time, plus where each click came from (country, city), what device, browser and OS was used, the referring source, and whether it was a link click or a QR scan.
What's the difference between link tracking and link analytics?+
Link tracking is the mechanism — logging each click as an event with its metadata. Link analytics is the reporting layer that turns those events into dimensions and trends you can act on. For short links, the terms are used interchangeably.
What's the difference between total clicks and unique clicks?+
Total clicks counts every click, including repeat clicks from the same person. Unique clicks deduplicates by visitor within a time window, so it approximates the number of distinct people. Total shows volume; unique shows reach.
Can I see who clicked my link?+
No — not the individual's identity. Privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA prevent that. You see aggregate details: approximate location, device, browser, referrer, and time — the where, when, and how, not the who.
How does click tracking actually work?+
Your short link points at our redirect server. When someone clicks, the server logs the request — IP for location, user-agent for device and browser, referrer, and timestamp — then instantly forwards them to the destination. It's server-side, so it needs no cookies or scripts on your landing page.
Do you filter out bots?+
Yes. Automated traffic is now over half of all web traffic, and link-preview crawlers from Slack, WhatsApp, and search engines hit links constantly. We identify bot and crawler traffic and count it separately, so your human click numbers stay accurate.
Is link analytics privacy-friendly and GDPR compliant?+
Yes. It's first-party and aggregate — no cross-site tracking cookies and no individual profiles — so it's GDPR- and CCPA-friendly and generally needs no cookie-consent banner. It also keeps working as third-party cookies go away.
Can I track QR code scans too?+
Yes. A QR code encodes a short link, so scans run through the same tracking pipeline and capture the same location, device, and time data — tagged as a scan so you can compare QR performance against link clicks.
Is the data real-time?+
Yes — clicks and scans appear in your dashboard as they happen, so you can see a campaign's response immediately instead of waiting for a daily batch.
Do I need UTM parameters to track clicks?+
No. Every short link is trackable on its own — location, device, referrer, and timeline are captured automatically. UTM parameters are optional and useful when you also want the data to flow into tools like Google Analytics.
Measure every link you share
Create a trackable short link and watch the clicks come in — accurate, real-time, and privacy-friendly.