LinkVault

Detailed Documentation

Escape Bitly Dependency

Bitly, Rebrandly, Short.io. They charge monthly. They store your data on their servers. They limit your analytics. Worse: if any of them shuts down or changes its policy, all your short links break worldwide. The links you painstakingly placed in tweets, posts, and emails turn into 404s.

LinkVault gives you a self-hosted URL shortener on your own domain. Your links live on your domain, your data sits on your server, your analytics are uncapped. No third-party dependency.

Branded Short Links: yourdomain.com/go/xxxxxx

LinkVault creates short links on your own domain. Format: yourdomain.com/go/abc123. Configurable — instead of /go/ you can use /link/, /r/, or any path.

The advantages of branded links:

• Trust: Visitors see your domain — click-through rates rise.
• SEO: Backlinks earned by your shortener accrue to your own domain.
• Brand consistency: Bit.ly and similar generic shorteners cause brand fragmentation — branded links keep things unified.

Sub-50ms Redirects via Early-Hook

The most critical performance feature of LinkVault is its early-hook redirect architecture. Standard WordPress plugins do a redirect after WordPress fully boots — this can take 200–500ms.

LinkVault works at the parse_request hook. Before the URL is matched against any post, the short link table is checked. If a match is found, redirect happens — and the WordPress core router never even runs. Total time: typically under 50ms.

Password-Protected Private Links

LinkVault supports private links protected by a password. Members-only content, paid downloads, or pre-launch products can be hidden behind these. The visitor must enter the password to access — without it, even if they know the URL, no redirect happens.

Passwords are bcrypt-hashed. Even if your database is compromised, link passwords cannot be retrieved.

GDPR-Compliant Analytics

LinkVault tracks every click but does so without storing personal data:

• IP addresses are anonymized — only the first three octets are kept (e.g. 192.168.1.x).
• User-agent only at the browser-family level (Chrome 121, Safari 17 — not full UA string).
• Geographic location only at the country level (no city or coordinates).
• Referrer source is logged but stripped of UTM parameters.

This architecture is fully GDPR-compliant. You can use it without showing a cookie consent banner.

Affiliate Link Management

LinkVault is more than a URL shortener — it's a full affiliate link management tool. You can mark each link as an affiliate link, define a category, set commission rate, and assign expiration dates. The dashboard tracks your affiliate revenue — a centralized panel for the analytics dispersed across Amazon Associates, ShareASale, ImpactRadius and similar platforms.

Auto QR Code Generation

Each LinkVault link gets an auto-generated QR code. The QR code is suitable for sharing in print materials, business cards, or restaurant menus. SVG and PNG download options.

API and Webhook Support

LinkVault provides a REST API. From your other applications, you can create, update, and analyze short links programmatically. Webhook support: when click thresholds are crossed (e.g. when 10,000 clicks are reached), an automatic notification fires.

Critical for Data Sovereignty

For sites operating in the EU and Turkey, data sovereignty is a critical issue. With Bitly, your link click data is stored on US servers. With LinkVault, all data stays on your own server — full sovereignty over jurisdiction.

Compliance Notes

• ISO 27001:2022 — A.5.34: Privacy and protection of PII. IP anonymization.
• ISO 27001:2022 — A.8.10: Information deletion. Click data is auto-anonymized.
• ITIL v4 — Service Catalogue: Self-hosted alternative to third-party services.
• COBIT 2019 — DSS04: Continuity management. No external service dependency.