Link permanence: why your short links should never expire
A short link is a small promise: click this and you'll get where you're going. Break that promise and you don't just lose a click. You lose trust, sometimes across thousands of printed copies you can never recall.
Where broken links really hurt
On the web, a dead link is annoying but fixable. Off the web, it's permanent damage:
- A QR code on packaging that's already in stores.
- A short link on a printed poster, flyer, or business card.
- A link in an email that went out to your whole list.
- A link in a presentation or PDF that circulates for years.
You can't edit any of those after the fact. The link has to keep working, for years.
"Link rot" and why it happens
Links die for two reasons. The first is the destination moving, which is outside a shortener's control. The second is entirely self-inflicted: shorteners that expire links, especially on free tiers, or that threaten to sunset old links to cut costs. That second kind is avoidable, and it's the kind you should refuse to accept.
Expiry should be a choice, never a default
There are good reasons to expire a specific link: a time-limited campaign, a one-off download. So expiry should exist, but as an opt-in setting on individual links, never a blanket policy that quietly kills everything after N days.
That's how Urlicer works: links are permanent by default. If you want a link to expire, you set an expiry date yourself, per link. Nothing lapses behind your back.
Own the link, keep it forever
The safest way to guarantee a link lasts is to control it: use a shortener that commits to permanence, keep your links in a workspace, and, for anything that really matters, put them on a branded domain you own, so the link's future is in your hands.
Do Bitly links expire?
The honest answer has two halves, and only one of them is on the pricing page.
What is documented: Bitly sells link expiration as a feature — the ability to set an expiry date yourself — and their comparison table lists it from Growth at $29/month upward. So on the free and Core plans you cannot make a link expire even if you want to.
What is a policy question, not a pricing one: whether a provider ever retires existing links — after an account closes, a plan lapses, or a domain is discontinued. That is worth reading in Bitly's own support documentation rather than taking from anyone else, including us.
The reason to care is that a published expiry policy is rarely what kills a short link. The common causes are duller: an account nobody renewed, a branded domain that lapsed, or a shared short domain that got blocklisted because of somebody else's phishing campaign — which takes every link on it down at once. That last one is worth understanding before you print anything: why short domains get blocklisted.
Urlicer links never expire unless you set an expiry yourself, and setting one is available from the entry paid plan rather than the third tier up.
Want links that last? Shorten a link free. No signup, and every link gets a QR code and click analytics.