Linkly’s Link Shortening & Reporting API

Before you Begin

Linkly generates API requests in the interface for you to copy & paste into your applications.

This works for both link creation, link update, and traffic reporting.

About the Linkly API

Linkly has two API’s:

1. Link creation API (as documented here).
2. Reporting API

Linkly Link Creation/Update OpenAPI 3.0 Spec

Linkly’s API is documented using the OpenAPI standard, which goes beyond what is provided below.

Authorization

• Your API Key
• Workspace ID

You can get these details from inside Linkly.

1. Login to Linkly.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click API Keys.

Creating or updating a link

To create a link, all you need to do is send a POST request to:

https://app.linklyhq.com/api/v1/link

with the following fields in the body.

The encoding type is x-www-form-urlencoded or application/json.

If you are submitting the Rules field, you must use application/json.

We recommend you use JSON with the Open API spec.

Example Request using cURL

The code below illustrates how to make an API request to create a link.

curl -X POST https://app.linklyhq.com/api/v1/link -H 'cache-control: no-cache' -d 'api_key=your_secret_key &email=chris%40linklyhq.com &workspace_id=1 &url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wikijob.co.uk &name=Test%20Link'

A successful response will return a JSON object representing the link, along with a link id.

{
    "id": 9512,
    "alias": null,
    "url": "https://www.wikijob.co.uk",
    "name": "Test Link",
    "note": null,
    "head_tags": null,
    "body_tags": null,
    "linkify_words": null,
    "enabled": true,
    "cloaking": false,
    "replacements": null,
    "domain": null,
    "slug": null,
    "utm_source": null,
    "utm_medium": null,
    "utm_campaign": null,
    "utm_term": null,
    "utm_content": null,
    "og_title": null,
    "og_description": null,
    "og_image": null,
    "full_url": "https://l.linklyhq.com/l/2TQ",
    "block_bots": false,
    "rules": [],
    "workspace_id": 1448,
    "referer_mode": null,
    "custom_referer": null,
    "click_fraud_mode": null,
    "deleted": false
}

Updating a link

In order to update a link, send the same request you’d use to create the link, but include the field link_id for the link you want to update, as well as the changes.

Creating Rotators via API

In order to create a rotator, submit a field called rules as a JSON array, along with the link payload above. You must use application/json to send JSON arrays.

For example:

[
  {what: ‘rotator’, url: ‘https://www.microsoft.com’, percentage: ‘50’},
  {what: ‘rotator’, url: ‘https://www.apple.com’, percentage: ‘50’}
]

Creating Geo-Redirects via API

In order to redirect by country, submit a field called rules as a JSON array, along with the link payload above. You must use application/json encoding to send JSON arrays.

For example:

[
  {what: ‘country’, url: ‘https://www.microsoft.com’, matches: ‘UK’}, 
  {what: ‘country’, url: ‘https://www.apple.com’, matches: ‘US’}
]

The country is the alpha-2 ISO 3166 country code.

Creating Device Redirects via API

In order to redirect by device, submit a field called rules as a JSON array, along with the link payload above.

For example:

[
  {what: ‘platform’, url: ‘https://www.google.com’, matches: ‘windows’}, 
  {what: ‘platform’, url: ‘https://www.apple.com’, matches: ‘ios’}
]

Where the field matches is one of:

• ios
• android
• windows
• linux
• mac

Creating or Updating Multiple Links in One Request

Linkly supports the creation/amending of up 1000 links per request.

To do so, submit your API key as part of the request as follows:

https://app.linklyhq.com/api/v1/link?api_key=XXXXXXXXXXX

Then, use the same schema as above for the individual link cases, but wrap the link requests in an array, of the form:

[{link}, {link}]

Here is a complete request that will update two links:

wget --no-check-certificate \
  --method POST \
  --timeout=0 \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --body-data '[
    {
        "email": "your_linkly_email@gmail.com",
        "workspace_id": "WORKSPACE_ID",
        "url": "https://nature.com",
        "name": "Test",
        "id": LINK_ID
    },
    {
        "email": "your_linkly_email@gmail.com",
        "workspace_id": "WORKSPACE_ID",
        "url": "https://science.com",
        "id": LINK_ID
    }
]' \
   'https://app.linklyhq.com/api/v1/workspace/WORKSPACE_ID/links?api_key=API_KEY'

This works for both creation and update actions.

Please be aware it can take up to 60 seconds for a large request. If requests take longer than this, they will fail, and you should consider breaking your workload up into smaller chunks.

Reporting API

Linkly automatically produces API requests for you inside your traffic reports.

Linkly’s traffic reports automatically build API requests for you, based on the data shown on the screen.

These links include your API key, and are easily customizable and usable in your own applications.