Skip Social Crawler Tracking
When you share links on social media, platforms like Facebook, X, and LinkedIn automatically fetch your links to generate previews. By default, these crawler visits are recorded in your analytics.
Skip social crawler tracking lets you exclude these automated visits from your analytics, so your click counts reflect only human visitors.
How It Works
| Setting | Crawlers can access | Clicks recorded | Previews work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disabled (default) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Enabled | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
When enabled, social crawlers still access your links and generate previews — they just aren't recorded in your analytics or counted toward your click limits.
Detected Platforms
The following are recognised as social media crawlers:
- Facebook — FacebookExternalHit, Facebot
- X — Twitterbot
- LinkedIn — LinkedIn Corporation
- Google — Googlebot, APIs-Google, AdsBot-Google
- YouTube — Youtube, LLC
Detection uses both user agent strings and ISP lookup.
Interaction with Bot Blocking
If you also use the "Block bots & spiders" feature:
| Block bots | Skip tracking | Social crawlers | Clicks recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| ❌ Off | ❌ Off | ✅ Allowed | ✅ Yes |
| ❌ Off | ✅ On | ✅ Allowed | ❌ No |
| ✅ On | ❌ Off | ❌ Blocked | — |
| ✅ On | ✅ On | ✅ Allowed | ❌ No |
Enabling both features blocks other bots while allowing social crawlers through without recording their visits.
When to Enable
Enable for most links — Cleaner analytics, accurate conversion metrics, and reduced database usage.
Disable temporarily when debugging social sharing issues, so you can verify crawlers are accessing your links.
Related Articles
- Bot Traffic — Understanding and managing bot traffic
- List of Detected Bots — Full list of bots Linkly identifies
Frequently Asked Questions
Will this affect link previews on social media?
No. Social media platforms can still access your links and generate previews. This only affects whether those visits are recorded in your analytics.
Do social crawler visits count against my click limit?
When skip tracking is enabled, social crawler visits do not count against your click limit.
How is this different from the Filter Robots button?
The Filter Robots button hides bot traffic from your analytics view, but the data is still recorded. Skip social crawler tracking prevents recording altogether.
Can I enable this for some links but not others?
Yes. The setting is per-link, and you can set a workspace default for new links.
Will this make my analytics more accurate?
Yes. By excluding automated crawler traffic, your click counts better reflect actual human visitors.