Can You See Who Clicked Your Link? What Click Data Shows

A short link can't tell you who clicked, by name. It can tell you how many clicks there were, when they happened, and the country, device and app behind each one. (Email tools can name clickers only because they send every subscriber a different link; the same idea works with short links, below.)

That is enough to answer the question most people are really asking: did anyone open it, and which place I shared it worked best? This guide shows what a click log contains, what it can't show, and how to handle the common cases. It is part of the link tracking handbook.

Short answer

What a click log shows

Every successful redirect through a SendURL link writes one record. Here is one, as the console's click detail and the API show it (trimmed):

There is no city, region or language in the record, and no shortener's free plan records a name either; free URL shortener with analytics compares what six of them do record. The full list of what SendURL records for every click covers each field and its limits.

What it can't show, and why

A click is an anonymous web request. The visitor isn't logged in to anything of yours, and a short link sets no cookie, so there is nothing that carries a name.

Can you see the IP address of someone who clicked a link?

With SendURL, yes: the IP address is in each click's detail and in the API. It won't identify anyone on its own. Home connections often share one address across a household, mobile carriers put many phones behind one address, and VPNs replace it entirely. Only the internet provider can match an address to a subscriber at a given time.

That doesn't make it harmless. In the Breyer case (C-582/14, judgment of 19 October 2016), the Court of Justice of the EU held that a dynamic IP address can be personal data for a website operator that has legal means to identify the visitor with the provider's help (court press release). Treat the IP column as personal data.

Does a link click show my location?

To the link's owner, roughly. SendURL shows the country, worked out from the IP address. Other tools go to city level, which is also an estimate from the IP. No link tracker gets GPS: your phone's location is only shared when a page asks for it and you allow it. What a click's country is good for, and where it misleads, is in using click country and device data.

Not every click is a person

The click you see may not come from the person you sent the link to:

• Previews. Slack, iMessage, WhatsApp and other chat apps fetch a link to draw its preview card. That fetch follows the redirect and counts. Apple's own technote on Messages previews (2024-04-30) says "Server-side redirects are followed".
• Scanners. Corporate email security opens links before delivery. Microsoft's Safe Links documentation (updated 2026-05-22) says "URLs are scanned prior to message delivery".
• Forwards. The person may have passed the link on.

How to tell these apart is in bot clicks and link previews.

How to see how many people clicked your link

1. 1.
   Share a tracked link instead of the plain URL. Shorten it on the home page without an account, or in the console with a custom slug.
2. 2.
   Open the link in the console. Total clicks is every recorded click; the Recent clicks list shows each one with its country, device and browser, and opens its full record.
3. 3.
   Check the first few clicks. Ones that land within seconds of you posting, from a desktop "device" with no browser named, are usually previews.

SendURL counts clicks, not unique people: one person opening the link three times is three clicks. To estimate people, count distinct pairs of IP address and user agent through the API. It is an estimate in both directions (two people on one office network with the same phone model collapse into one; one person on Wi-Fi and then mobile data counts twice). The script skips clicks from known preview bots and clicks with no user agent, since SendURL doesn't filter them. Install requests first with pip install requests:

import os, re, time

import requests

API = "https://api.sendurl.to/api/v1"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SENDURL_API_KEY']}"}
# Preview fetchers and scripts that name themselves; not every bot does.
BOT_UA = re.compile(r"bot|crawler|spider|facebookexternalhit|WhatsApp/|curl/|python-requests", re.I)

seen, total, automated, params = set(), 0, 0, {"limit": 10}
while True:
    r = requests.get(f"{API}/links/{os.environ['LINK_ID']}/clicks", headers=HEADERS, params=params, timeout=10)
    r.raise_for_status()
    page = r.json()
    for c in page["clicks"]:
        total += 1
        if not c["userAgent"] or BOT_UA.search(c["userAgent"]):
            automated += 1
            continue
        seen.add((c["ip"], c["userAgent"]))
    if not page["pagination"]["hasMore"]:
        break
    params["cursor"] = page["pagination"]["nextCursor"]
    time.sleep(0.25)  # stay under the API's rate limit

print(f"{total} clicks, {automated} automated, about {len(seen)} distinct visitors")

The LINK_ID is in the link's console address (console.sendurl.to/links/<id>). The click object reference lists every field.

One link per person or place

Since a link can't name its clicker, the way to learn more is to give each audience its own link. One link per place is the everyday version: the newsletter, the bio and the poster each get a slug, and the counts compare them.

One link per person is possible too. A job seeker can send snu.to/cv-acme to one company and snu.to/cv-globex to another, and see which application led to a look at the portfolio. Two cautions:

• A click proves the link was opened, not by whom. The recruiter may have forwarded it, and the company's email scanner may have opened it first.
• A link made for one named person turns an anonymous count into data about that person. If you do it in your marketing, say so in your privacy notice.

Is it legal to track who clicks a link?

Counting clicks per placement is the low-risk use, and it is what most link tracking is. Links that identify individuals are a different matter in the EU: the European Data Protection Board's guidelines on Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive (version 2.0, adopted 7 October 2024) list "URL and pixel tracking" among the techniques the rule can cover (EDPB guidelines 2/2023). This is not legal advice; if you track people one by one, ask someone who gives it.

Common cases

A link in your résumé or portfolio. Use one slug per application (cv-acme, cv-globex). A click within a minute of sending may well be the company's email scanner; a click two days later from a desktop in the company's country is more likely a person.

A link in a PDF. A click from a PDF usually arrives with no referrer, so nothing in the record says where it came from. Give each version of the document its own link (deck-oct, deck-nov) to learn which copy is still being opened.

A link in a WhatsApp group. The preview may count as a click the moment the message is sent. Use one link per group and ignore the first few seconds; WhatsApp and SMS link tracking has the detail.

A link sent to one person in a DM. One click means the link was opened at least once, by someone or something. It doesn't prove the recipient read it.

A link in a bio. You get a count per bio slot, by hour and device, but never the followers' names. The Instagram link tracking guide covers bio links, Stories and DMs.

Checklist

• Share a tracked link, never the plain URL, wherever you want a count
• Give each place, list or application its own slug
• Note when you sent or posted it, to separate previews from people
• Read clicks as clicks; estimate people with IP plus user agent, and label it an estimate
• Keep the IP column private and out of shared reports
• If you track individuals, mention it in your privacy notice
• Read the numbers in the free link tracker, or pull them with the API

Want counts for every link you share? Start with the link tracking guide.