Links

Two different things are called "Links" in big. This section is about short links — single redirects at /l/<code>, created and listed under Manage → Links. The Links entry in the main sidebar is something else: the link page builder (link-in-bio), one hosted page at /t/<handle> holding many buttons. That's documented in Link pages. Everything below is about short links.

A link is a short redirect at /l/:code that sends visitors to a target URL of your choice, with click stats tracked automatically.

What a link is

Every link has a target URL and a code. Visiting itsjustbig.com/l/<code> redirects instantly to the target. Stats for total clicks, unique clicks, referrers, and devices are tracked per link — see Link stats.

Create a link

Create links from Manage → Links (requires editor role):

• Target URL — required. Must be an absolute http:// or https:// URL.
• Code — either auto-generated at random, or a custom alias you choose. A custom alias can use letters, numbers, and hyphens, up to 32 characters, and must be globally unique across all workspaces — big checks availability as you type. Aliases are stored in lowercase, so Sale becomes sale.
• Display name — optional, up to 80 characters, shown to you in the dashboard.

To tie a short link to a form (so its clicks count as part of that form's share flow), don't create it here — use the Shorten it → button in the form editor instead. See Share your form.

Links created for you

Two other parts of big mint short links without you typing them:

• Forms. The Shorten it → button in the form editor attaches a link to a form. These are listed like any other link, with a form chip — you asked for that one, so it's yours.
• Link pages. Each link button on a link page gets its own short link on save — that's how per-block click counts work. These are not listed by default.

Manage → Links shows the links you created there. A link page's buttons belong to the page, not to this list: you read their click counts on the page's Stats tab, and their /l/ code is shown next to each block there. Otherwise you'd open Links and find a pile of random codes you never made and can't place.

Seeing them anyway

Above the list, Show them too switches to every short link in the workspace — page-minted ones included, plus any left over from a page or block you removed. The same switch works over the API:

GET /api/links            # the default: links you created
GET /api/links?scope=all  # everything, page-minted and leftovers included

The response echoes back the scope it applied, so you never have to guess which slice you got. big links and the MCP link tools list the default scope.

Which is which is readable per row: bio_page_id says a link page minted it, form_id says a form did, and orphaned_at says the page or block that owned it is gone.

How page-minted links behave

• The link is retargeted, not replaced, when you edit the block's URL. The code stays the same and its click history carries over — deliberately, so fixing a typo or swapping a campaign destination doesn't reset your numbers. This is the one case where a link's target does change.
• Deleting the link page (or removing the block) doesn't delete the link. The code keeps redirecting and keeps its history. It's flagged as no longer belonging to a page, which is why it drops out of the default list — switch to Show them too to find it, and delete it there if you want the redirect gone.
• Deleting one of these links doesn't break the page it came from. The block that referenced it is simply left off the public page from then on — see Blocks.

What's not there yet

• No editing a link you created by hand. The alias, name, and target of a link created in Manage → Links are all fixed once it exists. To change any of them, delete it and create a new one. (Links minted for a link page are the exception — see above.)
• Deleting is permanent. Deleting a link also permanently deletes its click history. A reused code does not inherit the old link's clicks.
• No caps. There's no plan-based limit on how many links you can create or how many clicks they can receive.

The redirect itself

Visiting /l/:code returns an instant redirect to the target URL — every hit is tracked. If the code doesn't match any link, the visitor is simply redirected to the big homepage; there's no error page shown.

Campaign tags pass through

Anything you append to a big link travels on to the destination. Share:

https://itsjustbig.com/l/abc123?utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign=spring

…and the visitor lands on your target URL with utm_source and utm_campaign still attached, so Google Analytics — or whatever the destination runs — attributes the visit correctly.

big forwards campaign parameters specifically — the utm_* family plus the major ad-platform click ids (gclid, fbclid, msclkid, ttclid, and similar). Other parameters are not passed on. That's deliberate: a link you share is something strangers can edit before re-sharing, and forwarding anything at all would let them append parameters that change how the destination behaves.

You usually don't have to type them. Pick where you're posting when you copy the link and big hands you a clean, already-tagged link — see Campaign attribution.

Two rules worth knowing:

• The target's own parameters win. If you created the link pointing at shop.example.com/sale?utm_source=big, then someone clicking ...?utm_source=twitter still arrives with utm_source=big. Your link's own tagging can't be overwritten by editing the URL.
• big's internal tracking parameter is never forwarded. When an automation DMs one of your links, big adds a private parameter so it can link the click back to that conversation. That value identifies a specific recipient, so it's consumed at the redirect and never passed on to the destination.