How Long Do Short Links Last?

1. The short answer

A short link is a row in a database saying “when someone asks for abc123, send them to this address”. There is nothing in that arrangement that decays. No countdown starts when you create it.

So the question “how long do short links last?” is really the question “how long will this particular provider keep that row, and keep the domain it lives on?” That has no universal answer, and providers differ enormously — including some that quietly delete links and do not say so anywhere obvious.

On URLVanish, links have no scheduled expiry and no inactivity pruning. A link created today and never clicked for five years still resolves. The only things that stop a link working are an expiry you set yourself, a click limit you set yourself, or suspension after an upheld abuse report.

2. The four ways a short link dies

1. The service shuts down

This is the big one, and it is not hypothetical. Google’s goo.gl stopped accepting new links in 2019 and began winding down redirects for existing ones; every link anyone had printed, embedded or pinned needed replacing. Smaller shorteners disappear regularly and without the years of notice Google gave.

When a shortener dies, its links do not degrade gracefully. They stop resolving. The destination is still there and perfectly reachable — but the map from short code to destination is gone, and nobody else has a copy.

2. The service prunes inactive links

Several free shorteners delete links that have not been clicked for some period, often twelve months, usually mentioned once in the terms of service and nowhere else. This is the failure mode that catches people out, because the link worked when they tested it and worked for months afterwards. The QR code on the poster stops working quietly.

If permanence matters, this is the specific thing to check before choosing a provider, and it is often not on the marketing page.

3. The destination moves or dies

The short link still works perfectly and delivers the visitor to a 404. This is ordinary link rot and it is by far the most common cause in practice. No shortener can prevent it: the redirect is faithful, and the address it faithfully points at no longer has anything on it.

Worth being precise about a related limitation: a URLVanish short link points at one destination for its lifetime and cannot be re-pointed afterwards. That is a deliberate property — a link someone saved should not be able to start going somewhere else — but it does mean that if your destination moves, you need a new short link, and the old one cannot be salvaged.

4. Somebody set an expiry

The only one that is intentional. An expiry date, a click limit or a self-destruct setting does exactly what it says. This is a feature when you chose it and a nasty surprise when a colleague did.

3. Making a link last

Six things, in descending order of how much they matter:

1. Choose a provider with no inactivity pruning and check the terms rather than the homepage. This is the difference between a link that lasts and one that quietly does not.
2. Keep your own record of destinations. A spreadsheet of short code and destination address. If the provider ever disappears, this is the only thing that lets you rebuild. It takes seconds per link and is the single highest-value habit here.
3. Do not set an expiry you do not need. Obvious, and still a common cause of dead printed material.
4. Point at a stable destination. Your own domain outlasts a third-party document link, a temporary file host, or anything with a session token in it.
5. For print, use a custom alias. If the link ever does need rebuilding somewhere else, a memorable alias can sometimes be recreated. A random code cannot be reasoned about at all.
6. Test before the print run. Scan the actual QR code from the actual proof. Encoding the wrong URL into ten thousand printed cards is a well-trodden path.

4. When you want a link that does not last

Permanence is the right default and the wrong choice surprisingly often. Sharing something that should not outlive its purpose is a real need, and the alternative — a permanent link you hope nobody keeps — is worse.

Expiry date

The link stops working at a time you choose. Good for event registration, time-limited offers, seasonal campaigns, and anything where a stale link causes confusion rather than harm.

Click limit

The link stops after a set number of visits. Good for sending something to a known, countable group.

Self-destruct

A click limit of one: the link works exactly once and is then gone. This is the right shape for sharing a credential, a one-time document, or anything where a second use means something has gone wrong.

Password protection

Not a lifespan control, but it belongs in the same decision: the link persists, and the destination is only revealed to someone with the password. Combines well with a click limit.

5. What people see when a link has ended

How a dead link fails matters more than it sounds. Three behaviours are common across the industry:

• A generic 404. The visitor cannot tell whether they mistyped, whether the link expired, or whether the service is broken.
• A silent redirect to the provider’s homepage. Actively confusing, and it makes people think they were tricked.
• A page that explains. “This link has expired” is the only one that lets the visitor take a sensible next step, which is usually to ask the sender for a new link.

URLVanish serves an explanation with an HTTP 410 Gone for a link that has expired or used its last click, which is the correct status code: it tells both the visitor and any crawler that the resource deliberately no longer exists, rather than that something is broken.

6. Choosing, in one table

What you are sharing	Setting
Printed material, QR codes, packaging, business cards	No expiry, custom alias, record the destination
Bio links, video descriptions, podcast mentions	No expiry, custom alias
Event registration, a dated offer	Expiry date just after the event
A document for a known small group	Click limit matching the group size
A credential or one-time document	Self-destruct plus a password, password sent separately
Anything you might need to re-point later	Point at a page on your own domain, and change the redirect there

That last row is the one people arrive at late. If a destination is likely to move, do not put the third-party address behind a short link — put your own URL behind it and control the onward redirect yourself. Then the short link never needs to change.

Frequently asked questions

Do short links expire?

It depends entirely on the provider. There is nothing about a short link that expires on its own — it is a database row. Some free services delete links after a period of inactivity, often twelve months, and usually mention it only in the terms. URLVanish links have no scheduled expiry and are not pruned for inactivity.

How do I create a short URL that never expires?

Use a provider with no expiry policy and no inactivity pruning, do not set an expiry date or click limit yourself, and keep your own record of which short code points where. That record is what lets you rebuild if the provider ever disappears, which no provider can rule out.

What happens to short links when a shortener shuts down?

They stop resolving. The destination is unaffected and still reachable directly, but the mapping from short code to destination is gone and nobody else has a copy. Google's goo.gl is the best-known example; smaller services disappear with far less notice.

Can I change where a short link points after creating it?

Not on URLVanish. A link points at one destination for its lifetime, so that a link someone saved cannot start going somewhere else later. If your destination is likely to move, point the short link at a page on your own domain and control the onward redirect there.

What is link rot?

The gradual failure of links as their destinations move or disappear. It affects short links and ordinary links equally: the redirect still works perfectly, and delivers the visitor to a page that no longer exists. It is the most common reason a short link stops being useful.

How do I make a link that deletes itself after one use?

Set a click limit of one, which is what a self-destructing link is. After the first visit the link returns a page explaining it has been used. Be aware that link previewers in chat and email often fetch links automatically and can consume that single use before the recipient clicks.

Is a self-destructing link secure?

It reduces exposure but encrypts nothing and is not a secure channel. For anything genuinely sensitive, combine a click limit with a password on the link and send the password through a different medium.

What does a visitor see when a link has expired?

On URLVanish, a page explaining that the link has expired or reached its click limit, served with HTTP 410 Gone. That status tells crawlers the resource is deliberately gone rather than broken, and it lets the visitor understand they should ask the sender for a new link.

Should I use an expiring link for a QR code?

Almost never. A QR code encodes a fixed string, so once it is printed it cannot be updated. Anything going to print should use a link with no expiry and no click limit.