How to use the URL Shortener

Create a short link

1. Open URL Shortener → Short Links.
2. Click Add Short Link.
3. Destination — paste the address the visitor should land on. Only http and https addresses are accepted. If you leave the scheme off, https:// is assumed.
4. Title — a note for your team, e.g. "Spring newsletter, main button". It is never shown to visitors.
5. Code — leave it empty and one is generated for you. Type your own if you want something readable on print, for example SpringSale. A green message confirms the code is free; a red one means it is taken or reserved.
6. Fill in the campaign tags if you use them (see below).
7. Click Save.

The new link appears at the top of the list. Click the copy icon next to its code to copy the full short address to your clipboard.

Tag a campaign (UTM)

The five UTM fields tell your analytics tool where a visit came from. Each field offers the values you have already used in this workspace — pick one to stay consistent, or type a new one.

• Source — where the link was published: newsletter, facebook, invoice.
• Medium — the kind of channel: email, social, print.
• Campaign — the effort it belongs to: spring-sale. Reports group by this field.
• Term — the paid keyword, if any. Optional.
• Content — which version or button, when you run two variants. Optional.

The Final URL line under the form updates as you type and shows exactly what the visitor will land on. If your destination already had a query string, the tags are merged into it.

Change where a link points

1. Find the link in the list and click the edit icon.
2. Change the destination or the tags.
3. Save.

The code stays the same, so anything already sent or printed keeps working and now leads to the new destination.

Read the numbers

Click a link's code to open its detail page:

• Clicks — every human visit.
• Unique — how many different visitors that represents.
• Last click — when the link was last used.
• A chart of the last 30 days, then breakdowns by device, country, browser and referring site.
• Recent clicks — the individual visits, most recent first.

Automated visits from mail scanners and link previews are recorded but kept out of these numbers, so an emailed link does not look opened when nobody has opened it.

Print it: the QR code

Every link has a QR code, shown on its detail page. Two download buttons sit under it:

• PNG — for a document, a slide or a social post.
• SVG — for anything going to print. It scales from a business card to a poster without going fuzzy, and your printer will ask for it.

Both versions come on a white, round-cornered background with a clear margin around the code. That is deliberate: a QR printed without a light border, or placed straight onto a dark background, often will not scan.

The QR points at the short link, not at the destination. That is the whole point: when the target page moves, you edit the link and every flyer, sticker and invoice already printed keeps working.

A scan is counted as an ordinary click. The short link is always a plain address with nothing after it, so scans and clicks cannot be told apart in the numbers.

Use your own short domain

By default your short links live on your workspace address. You can serve them from a domain of your own, such as go.mycompany.com, using any ordinary web hosting.

1. Point the domain at your web hosting with your registrar, and make sure HTTPS works.
2. In NIZU, click the download icon on any row of the Short Links list, or the Download files button on a link's own page. If you have not set up a domain yet it asks you for one first. (The same thing lives under URL Shortener → Remote Domains.)
3. Type the host name (just go.mycompany.com, no https:// and no path) and save. A small archive downloads straight away.
4. Unzip it. It contains index.php, .htaccess, nizu-endpoint.json and a README. You can download it again at any time with the Download files button next to the domain.
5. Upload all three files — index.php, .htaccess and nizu-endpoint.json — into the document root of that domain. Note the leading dot on .htaccess — some FTP programs hide files whose name starts with a dot, so switch on "show hidden files" if you cannot see it afterwards.
6. Open https://go.mycompany.com/ followed by one of your short codes. You should land on its destination.

Back in NIZU the domain shows as Connected once it has served its first request, along with how many requests it has handled.

Keep the archive safe. It contains this domain's secret token. You can always get a new one with the Download files button — but note that each download issues a new token, so a copy you already uploaded somewhere stops working until you replace it with the new files. NIZU warns you before doing that to a domain that is already live.

Requirements on your hosting: PHP 7.4 or newer and Apache with mod_rewrite — what almost every shared hosting package runs. No database and no extra software.

If your workspace is ever unreachable, the files keep working: they use their own short-term memory of recent links, and otherwise forward the visitor to your workspace address. A link never dies because of a hiccup.

Leave nizu-endpoint.json where it is and writable. It holds the address of your NIZU workspace, and the files keep it up to date by themselves — so if your workspace ever moves to a different address, your short domain follows it automatically. Your short links and any QR codes you have already printed point at your own domain, so they never change.

Send clicks to another system

Every click can be sent to an address of your choice as it happens, so it can arrive in your CRM, a spreadsheet or an automation tool.

1. Go to URL Shortener → Settings.
2. Under Send clicks to another system, tick Send clicks and paste the address that should receive them.
3. Optionally set a signing secret. When you do, each call carries a signature your system can check to prove the call really came from your workspace.
4. Save, then click Send a test. The result appears next to the button.

The Last delivery line always shows what happened on the most recent call, so you can tell at a glance whether the connection is still working.

Two things worth knowing: the call is made after the visitor has already been sent on their way, so it never slows a link down or breaks one if the receiving system is offline; and automated visits from mail scanners are never sent, so your CRM is not woken up by a robot.

Pause or delete a link

• Pause (the pause icon) stops the link working while keeping its history. Visitors see a short "this link is no longer available" page.
• Delete (the cross icon) removes the link from the list. Nothing is lost from the database and the code never starts pointing somewhere else.

Filter the list

The tabs above the table switch between All, Active and Paused links. The search box and the column sorting work on whatever the tab shows.