The Blrb Lab Notes
Stay updated with the latest in URL optimization, campaign tracking, and API development.
A Short Link Asks Your Reader to Trust Something They Can’t See
In a news context, a generic short link asks readers to click a destination they cannot verify. Branded domains fix the provenance problem.
Your Newsroom Knows How Many People Clicked. It Doesn’t Know Where They Were.
Click counts tell a newsroom a story traveled. They don't say where. What zip-code-level link analytics shows about coverage, service area, and audience gaps.
The URL Shortener That Works Inside Your AI
There’s a moment every marketer, agent, and small business owner hits when they’re working inside Claude. They’re drafting an email campaign. Or writing a listing description. Or planning ad copy. And they need a short link. So they stop, open a browser tab, log into their URL shortener, shorten the link, copy it, and come […]
Link Click Tracker Comparison: Which Tool Gives You Real Location Data?
Most link click trackers tell you the same thing: someone clicked. Total clicks. Maybe device type. Maybe referring URL. That’s it. If you’re running any kind of location-based marketing, that data is almost useless. You don’t need to know that a link was clicked 200 times. You need to know where those 200 people were. […]
Custom URL Shortener: Why Your Brand Deserves Better Than bit.ly
bit.ly/3xK9mZ7. That’s what you’re sending people when you use a generic link shortener. A random string that means nothing to the person about to click it. A custom URL shortener gives you something different: a short link that looks like it came from you, carries context, and builds the kind of trust that a string […]
Do URL Shorteners Affect SEO?
Most marketers ask whether URL shorteners affect SEO right before pasting a Bitly link into their email campaign or social post. The short answer: redirects matter, but the real SEO question isn’t about rankings—it’s about whether your link analytics tell you anything useful about organic performance, audience quality, or content distribution impact. Here’s what actually […]
Are Short Links Safe to Use?
Every time you click a short link, you’re making a small bet that it leads where it claims to go. For marketers sending those links, the question flips: are you confident your audience trusts you enough to click? The answer depends on which shortener you use, how much control you have, and whether you can […]
Link Shorteners and Email Deliverability
Your email made it past Gmail’s spam filter, your open rate looks decent, but your shortened links are getting flagged before anyone clicks them. The URL shortener you chose to track clicks is quietly tanking your deliverability scores, and most marketers don’t realize it until their sender reputation is already damaged. URL shortener email deliverability […]
Link Analytics vs Google Analytics: Know the Difference
You shortened a link, posted it to X, and got 847 clicks. Google Analytics shows 214 sessions from “t.co” referrals. The math doesn’t work, your attribution is broken, and you have no idea whether those clicks came from Dallas executives or Denver college students. This is the gap between link analytics vs Google Analytics, and […]