Domain Path Prefix

In some cases users need to put a custom keyword before Hash in their short links. So the short link looks like this:
https://custom-domain.com/KEYWORD/hash

This feature is most useful in case of CTA Whitelisting. CTA (Call To Action) in this context is a short link you want to send to your customers using bulk SMS messaging. Some mobile carriers require to whitelist URLs before allowing them in SMS. To conform to the whitelisting rules it's usually required to add a specific keyword to your URL. Example of such regulations is TRAI's Mandate for CTA Whitelisting.
That is what Domain Path Prefix is intended for!

How to set up Domain Path Prefix

To set up this feature you need to Edit properties of your domain:

• Go to Domains page
• Click on the pencil icon near your domain
• In the popup dialog box click on Domain Path Prefix
• Here you have to enter Path Prefix - the keyword that will appear between your domain name and the Hash in the short link. Path Prefix has same character restrictions as hashes. Path Prefix is case insensitive!
• You also need to enter Prefix Regexp - this is Regular Expression that should match Path Prefix. In simplest case it may be the same as Path Prefix.

How it works

Imagine you set up your domain custom-domain.com in the following way:

Path Prefix = cool

Prefix Regexp = ^cool$

All your short links in domain custom-domain.com will look like this:

https://custom-domain.com/cool/xyz

When a visitor clicks your short link https://custom-domain.com/cool/xyz

Our system treats it the same as clicking https://custom-domain.com/xyz.

Old version of the short link https://custom-domain.com/xyz will still work!

How to properly change Path Prefix

Imagine you set up Path Prefix and used it for a while. You shared short links with your users. Now you want to change Path Prefix but want your old links to continue working.

- Go to Domain Path Prefix Domain properties popup

- Set a new value for Path Prefix (for example hot)

- Add a new value of Path Prefix alongside the old value of Prefix Regexp like this: ^(cool|hot)$

Now all tree variants of your link will be handled exactly the same:

https://custom-domain.com/cool/xyz

https://custom-domain.com/hot/xyz

https://custom-domain.com/xyz

Path Prefix and Subdirectory Forwarding

Subdirectory Forwarding can work together with Path Prefix like this.

If your link https://custom-domain.com/xyz was leading to page https://mynewwebsite.com/about.

Then https://custom-domain.com/hot/xyz/our-team will lead to https://mynewwebsite.com/about/our-team.

However, be careful with Subdirectory Forwarding! If you set Path Prefix = xyz, then your short link xyz would not work with Subdirectory Forwarding.

https://custom-domain.com/xyz/our-team would lead to an error page!

Path Prefix and Path Regexp Smart Links

Path Regexp Smart Links can work together with Path Prefix.

Regular expression in Smart Link rule will work independently from Prefix Regexp and will match part of the path after the hash.

In link https://custom-domain.com/hot/xyz/our-team

• hot would be matched against Prefix Regexp
• our-team would be matched against Smart Link Path Regexp