Anatomy of a Shortlink
What are all the parts associated with a shortlink? Glad you asked!
Let's look at this link here:
dvt.fyi/homepage
First we have the domain: dvt.fyi
The domain is the root piece of a shortlink. Domains are registered in the Divertly platform and ownership verified through DNS records. You may only use domains that you own or have permission and access to use.
The next part is the route: /homepage
This tells us where you're trying to get to. Routes are unique within domains, so you cannot have two dvt.fyi/homepage routes.
Behind the route is a target. This is the webpage you want the shortlink to redirect to. Routes can have multiple targets and the decision of which route to redirect the link's user to can be set to one of a number of strategies: random, weighted, header (coming soon), or query parameters (coming soon).
Here is an example. Image the route /homepage has two targets:
https://foo.comhttps://bar.com
In the random target strategy, one of those values is picked at random and the link user is redirected. Over time, each target will receive half the traffic.
In the weighted target strategy, each target has a weight associated with it, which will increase the traffic to the heavier weighted target. For example, if foo.com has a weight of 1, and bar.com has a weight of 2, then one of every three requests will go to foo.com with the other two going to bar.com . If every route has the same weight, then the selection is random.
An interstitial is a webpage shown to the link user before they are forwarded to the route's targets. Not all routes have interstitials. An interstitial has a redirect timer associated with it, which is set by the route owner, so that the user is redirected to the target after a certain number of seconds. The interstitial page may have information about where the user is being redirected, how many seconds are left on the timer, ads, or custom content provided by the route owner.
Routes without interstitial pages are redirected immediately to the target.