Custom Short URL: How to Name Links People Trust and Remember

A Custom Short URL Has Two Halves

Take go.example.com/spring-sale. The first half, go.example.com, is the domain. The second half, spring-sale, is the slug, which Acturity calls the custom alias. Most advice about short links is about the first half. This post is about the second, because it is the part you write fresh for every link, and it decides whether the link reads as something worth tapping.

A slug is read before it is clicked. It shows up in a text message, in the corner of a poster, or on a slide the audience photographs. It is also the part people say out loud in a podcast or type by hand from a flyer. A good one tells the reader roughly where they're going and survives being typed once, on a phone, by someone in a hurry.

The Domain Half in Brief

The domain is where trust and email deliverability come from, and where the DNS records live. We cover that in full in our guide to branded link domains, so we'll keep it short here. In Acturity a custom domain needs two DNS records, a pointing record and a TXT record that proves you own it, and once they check out we set up the SSL certificate for you. Our post on building a custom domain strategy helps you decide which domain to use. Everything below works the same on your own domain or a shared one.

What Acturity Accepts as a Slug

Before style, the hard rules. When you create a link in Acturity you can type your own alias, or leave the box empty and get a random code.

• Length. An alias can be up to 20 characters. The shortest one allowed depends on your account, and the form shows yours. A short example such as demo only works if your account's minimum allows it
• Characters. Letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores. No spaces, no dots, no slashes
• Edges. It can't start or end with a hyphen or an underscore
• Unique. Each alias can be used by one link only, and aliases are unique across all of Acturity, so a name can be taken even on your own domain. If it's taken, you get "Custom alias is already in use" and have to choose another
• Not reserved. Words that look like parts of a website or an account system, such as admin, login or api, are refused. So are a short list of offensive words
• Counted. Custom aliases count against a monthly limit that depends on your account

The 20-character ceiling is worth designing around. our-incredible-spring-2026-sale-event-details is 45 characters and will never fit. spring-sale is 11 and says everything it needs to.

Choosing the Words

Here is how we'd pick them.

Say it out loud. If you can't read the slug to someone over the phone without spelling it, it's too clever. spring-sale passes. sp26s fails.

Use real words. winter-lookbook tells people what they'll see. x9kR2m could lead anywhere, and a reader has no reason to trust a string they can't read.

Keep it to one idea. A slug is a label, not a sentence. demo or demo-video is enough. If you need a third hyphen, the idea is probably two ideas.

Use hyphens between words. Hyphens are easy to read and are what most people expect in an address. Underscores are allowed, but they disappear when a link is underlined.

Stay with lowercase. Acturity accepts capitals, but a mixed-case slug is harder to say, harder to retype, and easy to mistype by one letter. Lowercase has no wrong case.

Avoid look-alikes if people will type it. The letter l and the number 1, or the letter O and the number 0, are indistinguishable on a printed page. A slug that will be typed from paper should avoid them.

Name the Purpose, Not the Offer

This is the rule we'd put on the wall. A destination can change. A name that has been printed can't.

Say you send a postcard with go.example.com/30-percent-off-shoes. In April the offer becomes 20 percent, and the slug is now wrong, on every card that's already in a drawer. Compare that with go.example.com/shoes, which stays true as long as the link leads to the shoe page. (The postcard is a made-up example.)

In Acturity you can change where a link points at any time without changing the link. So put the lasting idea in the slug, and put the details in the destination. Names that tend to age badly are:

• Percentages and prices (30-percent-off)
• Years and months, unless the link is truly for one dated event (black-friday-2026 is fine for that day, and wrong in June)
• Version words such as final, v2 or new
• Names of people who may leave the company

Naming Patterns That Hold Up at Scale

One link is easy. Two hundred links need a system, or your link list turns into noise within a quarter. Pick one pattern and write it down. Three that work, each with a 20-character budget in mind:

• Campaign then channel, such as spring-email, spring-social, spring-print. Good when you run the same campaign in several places and want to tell the clicks apart
• Product then asset, such as crm-guide, crm-demo, crm-pricing. Good for evergreen content
• Place then purpose, such as expo-booth, expo-badge. Good for events and offline material

Two details keep a pattern honest. First, put the stable word first, so related links are easy to spot together. Second, use the same words every time. If one person writes newsletter and another writes nl, your reports show two sources for one channel.

Consistency also covers the domain. Use the same domain on every channel, so that people start to recognize it. And keep your slug words in step with your UTM values. If the slug says spring-email, the campaign source and medium in your tracking should say email as well. Our guide to UTM naming conventions shows a vocabulary you can copy.

Names That Give Away Too Much

A short readable slug is easy to guess. Anyone can type go.example.com/q3-pricing and see whether it exists. So never rely on an obscure name to keep a page private.

• Don't put secrets in the name. Unreleased product names, internal project names and client names in a slug are visible to anyone who has the link
• If a page must be private, protect it properly. Acturity can ask for a password on a link, if your account includes that. A weird name is not protection
• Don't use generic labels. link1 and new-page tell nobody anything, and they collide with your own future links

Changing a Name After You Have Shared It

Decide the name before you share the link, because renaming is limited. In the dashboard you set the alias when you create the link, and the edit window does not change it. The API does accept a new alias on an existing link, but a link has only one address, and the old one is not kept. Anything already printed or sent with the old name stops reaching the link.

If you must rename a live link, you have two options.

1. Create a second link with the new name, point it at the same destination, and keep the old link running as long as the old name is out in the world. The cost is that your clicks are now split across two links, so add them up when you report
2. Leave the name and change the destination, which is almost always the better choice

A short test pays for itself here. Before you print or send anything, type the address by hand into a phone. If it loads the right page, the name is good.

Making Many Links at Once

If you have a long list, you don't have to name them one by one in the form. A CSV import creates one short link per row. The url column is required, and title, alias, tags and expires_at columns are optional. If a row's alias is already taken, that row is skipped by default, so check the result after an import. Imported links use your default domain.

A spreadsheet is also a good place to design the names. Write the pattern in one column, check that every alias is 20 characters or fewer, and look for duplicates before you upload.

Slugs for Printed Material

Printed links need the most care, because you can't correct them. A QR code hides the slug, but it also fails if the link ever changes name, so the same rules apply. Our guide to creating QR codes covers sizing and testing, and our post on tracking offline campaigns shows how to give each placement its own link. If you print the address as text, as a vanity URL on a poster or a radio ad, keep it short enough to say in one breath.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use capital letters or spaces in a slug?

Capital letters are accepted, but we'd stay with lowercase. Spaces are not allowed. Use a hyphen instead.

How long can a custom short URL be?

The alias can be up to 20 characters. The domain in front of it is separate and doesn't count towards that limit. The shortest alias you may use depends on your account.

What if the name I want is already taken?

Each alias belongs to one link, so you'll need another. Add the channel or the year, or use a second word. demo taken? Try demo-video or product-demo.

Do I have to choose a name myself?

No. If you leave the alias empty, Acturity makes a random code. That is fine for links nobody will read or type, such as a link inside an email button. For anything people see, choose a name.

Does the name affect how many people click?

We haven't measured it, so we won't give you a number. What we can say is that a readable name tells the reader where the link goes, and a random string doesn't. The cleanest way to find out is to test two names on your own audience and compare the clicks per link.

Where do I go next?

For the trust and deliverability side of branded links, read our guide to branded link domains. To see how each link performs once it's out in the world, open your analytics, or create your first short link and give it a name you would be happy to see on a poster.