Nobody removes links. Campaigns end, pages move, a colleague makes a second link to the same page because the first was hard to find, and a year later the workspace holds far more links than anyone uses. A short, regular clean-up fixes that. Once a quarter is enough for most teams, and My Links has the filters to do it in order.
1. Expired links
Set the status filter on My Links to Expired. These links have already stopped redirecting, so the question for each one is what should happen to the people still clicking it.
- Still needed? An expired link redirects again only once it has a new expiry date. Through the API that is one
PATCHwith a newexpires_at, ornullto remove the expiry. Without the API, create a new link and update the places you control. - Replaced by something else? Renew it the same way and change its destination to the current page, so old copies of the link lead somewhere useful.
- Finished for good? Archive it.
2. Links nobody clicks
Switch the status filter to Active and sort by Least Clicks. The top of the list is every live link with little or no traffic. Check the creation date before you judge: a link made last week has not had its chance yet.
Analytics adds a second view. The Needs attention card on the overview lists links that were busy and have had no clicks in 14 days, and the Links tab labels each link New, Active, Declining or Dormant. A dormant link that used to be popular deserves a look before it is archived, because something upstream may have broken.
3. Broken destinations
A link can be clicked every day and still be useless if its destination has gone. The same Needs attention card lists links that point to a broken page, and the Links tab shows a Destination status for each link: Working, Slow or Broken. Fix these first. Change the destination to a page that exists, and every copy of the short link is repaired at once.
4. Duplicates
Two short links to the same page split the clicks between them and make both look weaker than they are. The search box on My Links looks at the destination URL as well as the title and the back-half, so paste part of a page's address to list every link that points at it.
Not every duplicate is a mistake. One link per channel to the same page is how you tell channels apart, and those are meant to exist. The ones to merge are true doubles: same page, same purpose, made twice. Keep the one that is printed or widely shared. Before you archive the other, look at its recent clicks, because archiving stops it redirecting. If it still gets traffic, leave it.
Archive, do not delete
Archiving takes a link out of the main list and stops it redirecting, but keeps the link and its click history. It moves to the Archived tab, where you can restore it if the clean-up went too far. Deleting removes a link for good, so keep that for links created by mistake.
Star what must stay
The star on each row adds a link to the Favorites tab. Use it for the links that should never be touched in a clean-up: the ones in your email signature, on your packaging, in your app. Next quarter, start by reading that tab, then work through the four steps above.
For a structure that makes the next clean-up shorter, see the folders and tags tutorial.
