Email alerts about your codes

First scan, dead destinations, sudden spikes and the two security watches — and how to switch them off for one code or a whole tag.

What we email you about

The first time each code is scanned, so you know the print run arrived and works.

When a code's destination stops answering, so you find out before your customers tell you.

When scans spike well above a code's own normal, which is usually good news and occasionally a sign something has been shared somewhere you did not expect.

Where a code points is checked

Every web address a code, short link, card or page sends people to is checked when you save it, and checked again every week — because a destination is something you can change after the code is printed, and so is whoever owns the domain it points at. We look at how new the domain is, at sign-in words and brand look-alikes in the address, and at known-threat lists (Google Web Risk, URLhaus and Cloudflare's scanner).

**A destination that is caught is switched off.** The save is refused, or — for something already live — the code, link, card or page stops working and anybody who scans it sees a "blocked for your safety" page instead of the destination. Your account is never suspended for it, and your other codes keep working. We also add up weaker signs (a name like "Invoice", an encoded tag in the address, a sudden burst of scans from computers rather than phones) and suspend a single code when they pile up.

**A new account's link to a download may wait a minute.** For accounts in their first days, we also read the page a link goes to, and a link that points at a file host or hands over a file shows a short "this link is being checked" page until our scan of it finishes. That is normally a minute or two, it happens once for each destination, and the link then works as usual.

**You are told, and a person reviews it.** The account's owners get an email saying what was switched off and why, with a reference. These checks are sometimes wrong — a brand-new website for a real business is the usual case — so reply to that email or write to abuse@lynkarr.com with the reference; if it is fine we switch everything back on and stop checking that address.

Anybody can report a Lynkarr link that is being misused at lynkarr.com/report.

The two security watches

**A code's traffic turns automated.** Most of what a code takes in an hour is robots, and far more than that code usually takes. Usually a crawler that has found the page, a monitoring tool, or an AI assistant working through a site — none of it counted in your figures, because automated traffic never has been. Occasionally it is somebody working through short addresses to see what they resolve to.

**A code is scanned from countries it has never been scanned from.** For something printed, that usually means a photograph of it has been posted somewhere, it has been reprinted somewhere you did not expect, or the address is being shared as a link. If it was deliberate, nothing needs doing. If not, a dynamic code can be repointed and the printed symbol never changes.

Both are on unless you turn them off, under Settings. The spike alert beside them is off unless you turn it on — a spike is usually good news and can wait to be asked for; these two are the ones you would want to have been told about.

Turning them off

Per code: in the designer, under Options, switch off "Email me about this code".

Per tag: on Campaigns & tags, use the bell beside a tag to mute everything carrying it. Useful for a tag like "test".