Not all URL shorteners track clicks the same way. Some track different details, and some might even remove clicks that shouldn't be counted.
Rebrandly Removes All Bot/Spider Traffic from your Click Counter
Rebrandly automatically removes all bot/spider traffic from your click counter. Bot traffic appears naturally on every single link that you share publicly - on social media, advertising, or even on a forum. It occurs because companies like Google are looking to index your link and ensure that you are sending the user to a safe destination. Other bots, such as smaller social media analytics companies, may click on your link. Bot traffic is detectable and, therefore, can be filtered before sending a click report to you, the end-user.
Unique Clicks vs Non-Unique Clicks
At Rebrandly we report unique vs non-unique clicks. After 30 minutes, if the same user clicks on one of your branded links, they will be considered unique, but within 30 minutes they will be marked as non-unique users.
How Does Click Tracking Work?
Every time a user clicks a link, they are very briefly sent to a site that we control, which causes a page load request that we can then grab user data - such as referrer information and screen dimensions and a few other relevant pieces of information that are provided to any website you visit - before nearly instantly passing the user to their end destination. When done right, the process is seamless. Which is why having extremely high reliability and speed is crucial when in the URL shortener industry.
Since the beginning of Rebrandly, we have never had a crash and still remain at 100% uptime. You can check the Rebrandly status at any time.