Short link: definition, anatomy and what it costs

A short link is a URL on a short domain whose only job is to forward the visitor to a longer one. It carries no page of its own: the server answers with a status code and a Location header, and the browser goes where it is told.

What one is made of

Three parts. The host — gc.mw — decides how much of the character budget the link spends before it says anything. The code — abcd — identifies the row that holds the destination. Optionally a suffix: + shows the preview page instead of redirecting, .qr returns the QR image, .svg the vector version.

gc.mw codes come from a base58 alphabet with 0, O, I and l removed, so a code read over the phone or typed off a printed card is never ambiguous. Paid workspaces get four characters, free accounts and anonymous links get five. Codes are unique case-insensitively, so Sale and sale can never point at two different places, and a code that is retired is never reissued.

What the redirect actually does

The default status is 302. That is deliberate: a 301 gets cached by the browser and the destination stops being editable in practice, which defeats the main reason to use a short link at all. Our own query parameters — qr, gc_src, gc_pw — are stripped before the visitor is forwarded, so the destination never sees our plumbing. UTM values stored on the link are added only where the destination does not already set them.

Example

https://growcord.in/pricing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sep is 78 characters. As gc.mw/pric it is 10, the UTM values live on the link instead of in the text, and the destination can move to a new path next quarter without reprinting anything.

The cost

You are asking people to click something whose destination they cannot read. That is why the preview page exists and why every destination is checked against reputation providers when the link is created. Add + to any gc.mw link — gc.mw/abcd+ — to see where it goes before you open it, or paste it into the link expander.