How to select a URL shortener for your business

BL.INK was built with our customers in mind—and we know that use cases often evolve over time. That’s why we prioritized a flexible solution that has the ability to grow with you. We pride ourselves on getting to know your specific needs and creating solutions that make sense for your business.

We also prioritize open communication with our customers and prospects—we want to know how we’re doing. Over and over again, we have heard that BL.INK can do more than some of our competitors, often at a better price.

Here we’ll walk through a few of the features that set us apart. You may see similar features with our competitors, but these features are regularly brought up as stand-out BL.INK features that keep our customers coming back.

Real-time analytics dashboard

When you first log in to BL.INK, you’ll see a snapshot of your analytics report. Our clients are often surprised to hear that we store all of your analytics. We’ve had some customers that have click data that spans back 10+ years. We never delete a click.

Additionally, everything updates in real time. Clicks are updated instantly within your dashboard. Users can search for analytics reports from 10 years ago or from last week.

The filtering options at the top of the page help to narrow down a time frame, link owner, tag, etc. You can use the filtering options to dive deeper into a link or a group of links’ analytics.

Everything is editable. Everything.

With BL.INK, everything is editable. If the link exists in BL.INK, it can be edited. You can make updates to the destination URL, the owner of the link (ex. Users may assign a link to another link owner), update the group(s) or tag(s) assigned to the link, and more.

Inside the platform, everything can be edited. Anytime you create a link, you can always log in and make a change to it:

These are just some of the features that you won’t find with any of our competitors.

Trigger emails when links are clicked to aid in testing

When creating a link, BL.INK offers a setting that allows you to be notified of the first 10 clicks on a link. While we don’t want to overwhelm your inbox, this can be handy when first creating and testing a new link.

For certain use cases, it can be valuable to know when a link first starts receiving clicks—especially for campaigns that may take a lot of time from campaign planning to deployment.

If you’re using printed materials like a postcard in the mail or using a QR code on a brochure or even sending an SMS message to a singular customer, clicks may not occur instantly. Using the email notifications helps you stay in the loop and know instantly when the first 10 clicks roll in.

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BL.INK is the only URL shortener that supports 307 redirects

BL.INK supports both 307 Temporary Redirects and 301 Permanent Redirects. To our knowledge, we’re the only link management platform that supports a 307 redirect.

307 redirects tell the search engine that the link’s destination may change in the future. This prevents the link from being indexed by the search engines and allows for more accurate click data.

301 redirects pass SEO ranking power to the redirected page. If SEO is more important than click data, we recommend using 301 redirects.

For more information on the redirect types, check out our help article.

Trigger actions by date and time

Date actions are available to automatically archive or delete a link on a set date in the future. Archiving a link preserves the link and associated click data in the BL.INK dashboard – but expires the link for the end user, and reroutes them to your custom home page (set in the Admin settings). Deleting a link removes the link and all associated click data from your BL.INK account.

These automatic date actions help protect your customers, save room in your account for more links, and assist in keeping your links organized. For example, if you’re shortening a link for a password reset email to your customer, the link will stay valid for a short period of time, and automatically expire—protecting your customer’s account, and leaving room in your account for more links.

Automatic date actions are also extremely valuable for SMS campaigns. Links for SMS are often only valid for a limited time. So you can set the date for the link to automatically expire when creating the link via the BL.INK dashboard or in the API.

Private links preserve intellectual property with protected redirects

BL.INK offers the ability to create private links. Private links allow you to create a link that requires the end user to log in to BL.INK before they can access the content on the other side of the redirect. We use this internally for sharing sensitive documents between team members.

Requiring a login ensures that no one outside of your organization is able to access the contents of the destination.

This can also be handy if you’re putting together a new campaign but you haven’t quite launched yet. Keeping the link private ensures that no one can view what’s on the other side of the link until you’re ready to push it live and disable the private setting.

Want to know more? Let's talk about your specific needs. Request a custom quote.

Test your links without affecting analytics

BL.INK users may reset their clicks to zero at any time—you can create a link, test it, share it internally, and then reset the clicks before the campaign goes live to ensure your click data is accurate.

We also offer the ability to block specific IP addresses—you can set up your own, internal IP address(es) to automatically filter out of your click analytics, giving you the ability to click the link at any time without skewing your link’s analytics.

Build or specify custom URL parameters

The URL Builder enables users to create ideal attribution strategies and build out frequently-used tracking parameters within the account settings, making these available to all users across an organization.

This helps to standardize URL construction and analytics tags across your teams and makes building short links with the correct tracking information a breeze.

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Robust reporting tailored to your organization’s needs

Filter IP addresses

The Blocked IP Addresses feature allows you to omit specific IP addresses from your click analytics. This way, you can still click on your links, but your clicks will not appear in the click data.

Review audit logs

Customers on BL.INK Enterprise can enable audit logs for their account. With this optional add on, every function inside the platform is written to the audit log to ensure compliance and security meets your organization’s needs.

Broken link reports

BL.INK Enterprise can automatically monitor each of your links 24/7. If a link breaks, we’ll notify you so you can quickly make a change to the no-longer-active destination page. This prevents your customers from running into dead ends.

We also offer the ability to exclude specific domains from the broken link report. For example, if you have links set up for internal-only resources, BL.INK can omit these links from appearing on the broken link report so that we’re not overwhelming your inbox.

Flexible modules to support different teams

We have several, additional admin modules available to our Enterprise clients. The beauty of BL.INK is that you can pick and choose from our add-on modules to tailor your BL.INK account to meet the needs of your organization.

There are a ton of only-with-BL.INK functionalities, and we’re always looking for ways we can improve the platform to better suit your needs.

Personal customer service and support

One of the compliments we receive over and over again, is that our customer service and support is top-notch. Our team is here to help our customers understand how to use the platform, BL.INK best practices, and we make a point to understand your business to ensure we’re solving any problems quickly and efficiently.

We pride ourselves on taking good care of our customers with speedy response times, helpful tips and tricks, and a smile on our face.

Ready to discover the BL.INK Enterprise difference? Request a custom quote today.