What happens when someone clicks a short link

Understanding the order of the redirect pipeline explains most surprises: why a rule did not fire, why a link showed a page instead of redirecting, why a click was not counted.

The order of operations

1. Domain lookup. The hostname is resolved to one of your domains. A suspended domain shows a disabled page and stops here.
2. Special paths. The empty path uses the domain's main page redirect, or shows the 404 page. robots.txt, /.well-known/assetlinks.json and apple-app-site-association are answered from Domain settings.
3. Subpath rules. Whole prefixes configured under Redirects are sent onwards before any slug lookup happens.
4. Slug lookup. No match means the domain's 404 redirect, or the themed not-found page.
5. Moderation. A link disabled by abuse review returns 410.
6. Content links. If the slug belongs to a bundle or a published post, that page renders instead of redirecting.
7. Encryption and password. An encrypted link serves the decryption page; a protected link serves the password page until the cookie is set.
8. Expiry. An expired link goes to its fallback destination, or shows the expired page with 410.
9. Anti-scrape. With Prevent scraping on, suspicious automated traffic gets a browser check first. Preview bots are exempt.
10. Destination selection. Geo rules first, then iOS and Android destinations, then A/B variations. Geo wins over the others when it matches.
11. URL assembly. Query parameters are merged, UTM values applied, a clid added if conversion tracking is on, and the URL signed if signing is enabled.
12. Logging, then delivery. The click is written, then the redirect is sent with the link's status code.

The two exits that are not redirects

A preview crawler on a link that has social metadata gets an HTML page carrying those tags instead of a 302, because a crawler that follows a redirect reads the destination's tags and ignores yours. A cloaked link serves a framing page. Both are counted as clicks.

Overrides you can use while testing

• ?qr=1 marks the click as a QR scan.
• ?ms_geo=IN or ?ms_geo=IN-MH/Pune previews a geo rule from anywhere and is excluded from statistics.
• ?ms_nomerge=1 skips query merging for one request.

Find this in your dashboard

1. Sign in and select the workspace and domain you want to manage.
2. Open Branded Links. Review the article’s steps and your plan’s available controls.
3. Save your changes, reopen the record and verify the saved result. For routing changes, check the short link with a test visit.

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