Free · no paid tier · no ads on your links
Put every link on your own domain, change where it points after it is printed, and see every click — without a paid tier, because there isn't one.
No account needed for a plain link · xlyl.link/spring-sale · sign up free
No ads, no interstitial
A visitor who clicks your link arrives at the destination. Nothing in between.
Visitor IPs never stored
Clicks on account links are recorded in detail. The visitor's address is not — so there is none to leak.
No paid tier
Custom domains, analytics, API, QR codes — every feature, every account.
Your data comes with you
Download your links and each link's clicks as CSV, or pull statistics through the API.
A tour
These are screens from Xlyl as it runs today — not mock-ups. What you see is what you sign in to.
01Analytics
Each link you own has its own page: clicks over the last day, week, month or all time, then referrers, countries, devices and campaigns, down to the individual click. Bots, scanners and repeat clicks are filtered before anything is counted, and visitor IP addresses are never stored.
02Links
Search, sort and filter every link you have made — by when it was clicked, not just when it was created. Edit the destination after it has been printed or posted; the short link stays the same. Copy it, get its QR code, or see its numbers, from the row.
03Your domain
One DNS record and the domain is yours to shorten on. The page tells you exactly what to set, and a Check domain button requests the domain from the server and says whether it works, and if not what is missing — so the question is answered on the page, not in an email.
04API
Issue a key, and the quick-start samples on the page already contain it. Create, list, edit and delete links, add domains, read statistics — over JSON, from a script, a spreadsheet, a CMS or a build step.
The small things
A feature list says what exists. These say how it feels to use.
One click for the last 7 or 30 days; two clicks on a calendar for anything else. The prompt tells you what the next click does.
The same dashboard on a phone: the navigation slides in from the left, tables scroll where they must, and nothing is hidden.
Member since, links, all-time clicks and connected domains — each a link to where the number comes from. A CSV export of every link is one click away.
How it works
Drop any URL into the box. You get a short link back instantly — no account needed for a plain one.
Targets up to 2,040 characters. UTM parameters and all.
Sign in, then choose the ending, pick your own domain, add a password or an expiry. Every option is one field away.
go.yourbrand.com/spring-sale instead of a random code.
Post it, print it, put it in a QR code. Every click on a link you own is counted by hour, country, device and referrer.
Change the destination later. The link never changes.
Everything included
The only limits are anti-abuse ones. Everything below is available to every account, free.
Name the link yourself. Letters, numbers, hyphens — up to 64 characters, unique per domain.
Learn moreOne DNS record and links serve from go.yourbrand.com. Add several domains to one account.
Learn moreEvery click on your links: country, device, browser, referrer, campaign. Bots and scanners filtered, visitor IPs never stored.
Learn moreRepoint a link after it's printed or posted. The short link stays; the target moves.
Learn morePut a door in front of a link. Visitors enter the password before the redirect.
Learn moreGive a link a lifetime — 30m, 8h, 7 days. It stops working on schedule and frees its alias.
Learn moreEvery link you own gets a downloadable code. A scan that opens it counts as a visit; the code stays valid if you repoint.
Learn moreLinks, custom domains and click statistics over JSON with an API key. Bulk-shorten from a spreadsheet or a CMS.
Learn moreWhy this one
A link shortener is judged on what happens after the link is shared. These are the six things this one gets right, each with a page that shows how.
Pick the ending yourself and serve it from a domain you own, so every link carries your brand instead of someone else's.
Custom URL shortener→Clicks by hour, country, browser, OS and referrer for every link you own. Bots are filtered out — link previews, crawlers, scripts posing as browsers, cloud-server scanners and repeat clicks — so the count is people.
Link tracking→No paid tier, no advertising on the redirect, no countdown page. A visitor who clicks your link arrives at the destination.
Free URL shortener→Edit where a short link points after it has been printed, posted or emailed. The link stays the same; the destination moves.
All features→Put a password on a link, or give it a lifetime after which it stops working. Useful for previews, launches and private shares.
Protected links→Every link you own gets a downloadable QR code, and links, custom domains and click statistics are available over a documented REST API.
QR codes→Switching?
If you use one of these today, the page for it says what changes and what doesn't.
FAQ
The things people ask before they trust a link shortener with their links. Straight answers, no marketing.
A URL shortener is a tool that takes a long, complex web address and creates a shorter, more manageable version of it.
The short URL redirects to the original one when clicked. It is commonly used to make lengthy links easier to share and remember, or to fit within character limits on social media and messaging apps.
Concise and memorable links: short URLs are easier to remember, read aloud and share than long ones full of tracking parameters.
Better social sharing: on platforms with character limits, a short link frees up space for the message itself.
Trackable analytics: you can see click-through rates, where traffic came from and which campaigns are working.
Redirection and link management: you can change where a link points without reprinting or resharing it.
Xlyl combines ease of use, custom branded domains, click analytics, password protection and link expiry behind a simple interface and a documented REST API — so you can shorten a link in one click or automate it.
Yes. Shortening links, custom aliases, branded domains, analytics, QR codes and API access are all included — there is no paid tier and no per-link charge.
To prevent abuse, an account can create 50 links in any 24 hours.
Yes, and this is usually the main reason to use a shortener at all. Edit the target and every copy of that link already out in the world — printed, posted or emailed — starts going to the new destination.
The short link itself does not change, so nothing you have already published breaks.
Only if you ask them to. By default a link lasts indefinitely. You can set a lifetime such as 30m, 8h or 7 days when creating it, after which the link stops working and is removed.
Yes. Point a domain or subdomain at the server with an A record, add it in your settings, and your links are served from it instead of the shared domain.
Xlyl is free and shows no advertising on short links, on the redirect, or in the dashboard. There is no interstitial page and no countdown. (Links the site's administrators create to a few marketplaces pass through an affiliate redirect; the privacy page lists them.)
Yes, on links you create with an account. Each click is recorded with its time, country, device, browser, referrer and campaign tags, so you can see which channel it came from. Known bots are filtered out by their browser string, and visitors' IP addresses are never stored. Links made without an account are not counted.
Short links are as safe as the destination behind them. Targets are checked against lists of banned domains and hosts, abusive links can be reported and are removed, and you can preview a link's destination by adding a plus sign to the end of it before you click — except for password-protected links, whose destination stays hidden.
A QR (quick response) code is a square barcode that stores information — in this case, your short link — so it can be scanned by a phone camera instead of typed.
Every link in your Xlyl dashboard has a QR code you can save and print.
Free, no ads, no card. Sign up for custom endings, your own domain, analytics and QR codes — or shorten one link above and go.
Every Xlyl feature is on every account, and your links and their clicks export as CSV whenever you want them.