Shortraffe › Guide
How to use Shortraffe: shorten, track and share a link in minutes
A short guide to free shortening, member accounts and the VIP features.
1. Shorten a link for free, no sign-up
- Paste your long link into the "Shorten your link" box on the home page and press shorten.
- Copy the short link and share it in LINE, Facebook, Instagram or anywhere else.
Free-tier rules: the destination must be https:// on a real domain name, links last 1 day, you can shorten a limited number of links per 24 hours (the home page shows how many are left), and the destination cannot be changed. Your recent links are shown in your own browser only.
2. Sign up as a member (free)
Members can have 30 active links at the same time, links last 30 days, codes are random, and you can see click counts plus daily/weekly charts. Delete a link or let it expire and you can create a new one straight away, because only active links count.
Sign-up and link management currently work through the API (there is no member screen yet). Example below.
# register and log in
curl -X POST $BASE/external/auth/register -H 'content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"email":"you@example.com","password":"a long password"}'
curl -X POST $BASE/external/auth/login -H 'content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"email":"you@example.com","password":"a long password"}'
# create a link (use the access_token you received)
curl -X POST $BASE/external/links -H "authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
-H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"target_url":"https://example.com/promo"}'3. VIP plans
- Custom link names such as
/summer-sale, if not taken. - Custom expiry, or no expiry until VIP is cancelled (after cancelling, links expire within 3 days).
- Click limits per link.
- QR codes as SVG or PNG.
- Advanced analytics by country, device, opening app, UTM source and best time to post. See link analytics.
Compare plans on the plans page.
4. When a link cannot be used
Visitors who open an expired, paused or missing link see a clear status page (expired, click limit reached, paused by owner, suspended by an admin, unsafe destination and more) instead of a blank error. The status page of a working link shows the destination domain so you can check it before you click.
5. Link safety
We do not shorten links that point to other link shorteners (to stop destinations being hidden) and the list of banned domains can be viewed on the home page. Free-tier destinations must use https.