Blog
Guides on short links, redirects, QR codes and digital cards
Practical, tested guides from the people who run GC.MW: redirects, UTM tracking, QR for print, link safety, bio pages and digital business cards.
301 vs 302 redirects: which one a short link should use
A 301 is cached by the browser forever, which silently stops your clicks being counted. Why gc.mw defaults to 302, and when to override it.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
A/B testing with short links: splitting traffic at the redirect
One link, two destinations, weighted. How the split is decided, what the variant report shows, and the three ways a redirect-level test misleads you.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Are short links safe? What a shortener can and cannot promise
A short link hides the destination, which is exactly why attackers like them. Here is what we check, what we block, and how to inspect any link before you click.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Bot traffic in link analytics: what gets counted and what does not
Preview crawlers, security scanners and scrapers all hit a short link before a human does. How the three are told apart, and why one of them is never counted at all.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Do branded links improve click-through rate? An honest answer
The commonly quoted uplift figures come from vendor studies with obvious incentives. What is actually defensible about branded short links, and how to measure it on your own traffic.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Bulk URL shortening: 1,000 links in one request, without a mess
How to shorten a spreadsheet of links properly, the row limit, what happens to a bad row, why aliases collide inside a batch, and how to get the results back into your sheet.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
How to set up a custom domain for your short links
Two DNS records, one verification, and links on links.yourbrand.com. What to choose as the subdomain, why not the root, and what happens if you leave.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Deep links for app marketing: what a shortener can and cannot do
A short link can send iOS, Android and desktop to three different places. It cannot survive an install. Where the line sits, and how to build the campaign around it.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Device-targeted links: sending iOS, Android and desktop apart
Three branches, two regular expressions and no user-agent library on the redirect path. What device targeting on a short link can decide, and what it deliberately cannot.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Digital business card vs paper: what each one is actually good at
Paper wins the handover. Digital wins everything afterwards. The honest comparison, and the setup that uses both without pretending either is dead.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
GDPR and link tracking: what a redirect is allowed to record
Link tracking touches two separate rules, the cookie rule and the personal data rule. Which one a redirect engages, and what a shortener has to store to stay on the right side of both.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Geo-targeted links: one URL, a different page per country
How country routing on a short link actually works, where the country comes from, why it is only ever a country, and the four ways teams get it wrong.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
How to check where a short link goes before you click it
Four ways to see the destination of a bit.ly, tinyurl or gc.mw link without your browser ever touching it, and what the redirect chain tells you.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
How to shorten a link (and keep control of it afterwards)
Paste, press Shorten, done, but the interesting part is what happens next: claiming the link, editing where it points, and choosing your own words.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
How to track link clicks without installing anything
A short link counts the click at the redirect, before the destination loads. What that gives you, what it cannot give you, and how gc.mw separates humans, bots and QR scans.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Link analytics: the six numbers worth reading, and the rest
Clicks is the least useful number on the page. What uniques, scans, bots, hour-of-day, referrer type and variant actually tell you, and where each one is estimated rather than counted.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
What happens when a short link expires (and how to avoid finding out)
Expired links answer 410 Gone, not 404, and not a redirect. The three ways a link stops working, what each one shows, and which codes come back.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Link in bio ideas for Instagram that survive contact with reality
Eight things worth putting in the one link slot, how to know which of them works, and why one short link per placement beats one page for everything.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Link in bio ideas for TikTok, where nobody reads the profile
TikTok traffic arrives fast, from one video, on a phone. What to put in the link slot, how to change it per video, and how to measure a channel that tells you nothing.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Link rot and how to prevent it on the links you cannot recall
Printed links, email footers and bios break slowly and silently. A repair plan that takes an afternoon, plus the trade a shortener actually makes.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Link shortener API tutorial: from first key to a working integration
Create a key with the right scopes, shorten a link, read its stats, and handle the four responses that will actually break your integration. With the real request and response shapes.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Migrating from Bitly: what moves, what cannot, and the safe order
Existing bit.ly links can never be transferred, only a custom domain moves cleanly. The export, the bulk import, and the sequence that keeps every printed code working.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Migrating from Linktree without losing the traffic you already have
A bio page is a list you can read, so there is nothing to export. The part people get wrong is the order, rebuild, redirect, then change the bios, and never delete first.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
NFC business cards explained: the tag, the URL and who writes what
An NFC card holds a few hundred bytes and one URL. What the tag actually stores, why a short link matters more here than anywhere else, and what gc.mw does and does not provide.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Password-protected links: what they protect and what they do not
A password on a short link stops casual access and link previews, not a determined attacker. How ours works, and when it is the right tool.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
QR codes on business cards: the size, the target and the mistakes
A business card gives you about two centimetres and one attempt. What to encode, how small a code can get before it fails, and why a vCard baked into the code is the wrong answer.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
QR code size and scan distance: the numbers, not the guesses
The 10:1 rule, why module size is the real measurement, and how a shorter URL buys you a physically larger square at the same print size.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
QR codes for print: the settings that decide whether it scans
Vector not raster, four modules of quiet zone, dark on light, and a destination you can still change after 8,000 flyers are on a table.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
QR menus for restaurants: the version that does not annoy people
Most QR menus fail for the same four reasons, a PDF, a slow page, a code printed too small, and a link that dies when the PDF is replaced. Each one is avoidable.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Short links in email campaigns: what helps and what hurts delivery
Shorteners have a reputation problem in email, and some of it is earned. Where a short link genuinely helps, where it costs you the inbox, and the setup that avoids both.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Short links for events: badges, banners and the schedule that changes
An event's links are printed weeks before the details are final. How to build a set that survives a room change, a speaker cancellation and a venue with no signal.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
SMS link length: how one URL costs you a second segment
160 characters is 153 once a message splits, and one emoji drops you to 67. Where the link fits, what to cut, and how to keep the tracking anyway.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Digital business cards for a whole team: what actually needs deciding
Rolling out cards across a company is three decisions and one policy question, not a software project. Roles, templates, what leavers take with them, and where the current build is manual.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
A UTM builder guide: build the link, then shorten it
How to use a UTM builder without producing 40 variants of the same campaign name, naming rules, a worked example, and what the builder does to your values.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
UTM parameters explained, with the rules that stop them rotting
The five utm_ tags, what each one is really for, why utm_source is not optional, and how to attach them to a short link so the visitor never sees them.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
vCard files explained: what is inside a .vcf and why 3.0 still wins
The format every phone imports, line by line, escaping, folding, the version question, and how much of it fits in a QR code.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Webhooks for link events: signatures, retries and the endpoint you need
The eight events gc.mw sends, the exact signature scheme, the nine-attempt retry schedule, and the receiver code that verifies a delivery correctly in a dozen lines.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Vanity URLs: four namespaces, one naming scheme, no regrets
Path aliases, subdomains, custom domains and handles are four different things people call a vanity URL. Which to use for what, and how to name them so they survive a rebrand.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
WhatsApp click-to-chat links: the format, the traps, the tracking
wa.me wants an international number with no plus, no zeros and no punctuation. How to build the link, pre-fill a message, and count who used it.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read