Links & destinations
Block or allow countries
Turn away visitors from the countries you list, or let in only those countries — for the whole workspace or for a single link.
Country access decides who can follow a short link based on the country of the visitor's IP address. You can block the countries you list, or allow only the countries you list. A rule can cover every link in the workspace, a single link, or both — and a link's own rule always wins.
What it does
Before Letlink redirects a visitor, it checks the rule that applies to that link. A visitor the rule permits goes straight to the destination as usual. A visitor it does not permit is sent to your fallback URL if you set one, or shown a short “not available in your region” page.
The same check runs for short links and for QR code scans, so a printed code obeys the rule of the link it points at. There is no separate setting for QR codes.
Blocklist or allowlist
| Mode | Who gets through | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Block countries | Everyone except visitors from the countries you list. | Keeping a campaign, offer or download out of a handful of markets. |
| Allow only | Only visitors from the countries you list. | An offer that is licensed, priced or shipped for specific markets. |
Pick countries from a searchable list — type part of a name, or a two-letter code such as DE or GB. Both modes need at least one country; an empty allowlist would turn everyone away, so Letlink will not save one.
Workspace rule and link rules
There are two places to set a rule:
- Workspace rule — on the Country access page (sidebar → Manage → Country access). It applies to every link that does not have its own rule, including links created later. Only workspace owners and admins can change it.
- Link rule — in the Country access section of a link's edit page. Anyone who can edit the link can set it.
Each link has four options:
| Link option | What applies to that link |
|---|---|
| Workspace rule (default) | Whatever the workspace rule says, including later changes to it. If the workspace rule is off, the link is open to every country. |
| No restriction | Open to every country, even when the workspace blocks some. Use it to exempt a link — a support page, a global press kit — from the workspace rule. |
| Block countries | This link's own blocklist. The workspace rule is ignored for this link. |
| Allow only | This link's own allowlist. The workspace rule is ignored for this link. |
The Country access page lists every link with its own rule under Links with their own rule, so you can see which links override or opt out of the workspace rule.
Block bots
The same page has Block bots, a separate workspace switch. It is on by default on every plan, including Free, and is not part of the country-rule plan gate. When it is on, crawlers, scrapers and preview fetchers receive HTTP 403 instead of the destination. Turn it off if you need unfurled previews in chat apps. Owners and admins can change it; members can see the current state. Details are in Archive, favorites, visit limits, and bots.
Setting it up
For the whole workspace
- Open Country access from the sidebar, under Manage.
- Choose Block countries or Allow only.
- Add countries from the searchable list. Remove one with its ×, or clear them all.
- Decide whether to block visitors whose country can't be determined (see “Visitors whose country is unknown” below).
- Optionally enter a fallback URL under Send blocked visitors to.
- Choose Save rule. It applies immediately to every link without its own rule.
To switch the workspace rule off, choose Off and save the rule. Links on Workspace rule are then open to every country; links with their own rule keep it.
For one link
- Open the link's edit page.
- In Country access, choose Workspace rule, No restriction, Block countries or Allow only. The Workspace rule option shows what the workspace currently does.
- For Block countries or Allow only, add countries and set the unknown-country and fallback options — they belong to this link's rule.
- Choose Save country access. This panel saves on its own, separately from the link's other fields.
What blocked visitors see
Without a fallback URL, a blocked visitor gets a short page saying the link isn't available in their country (or “in your region” when the country is unknown), with a suggestion to contact whoever shared it. It does not reveal the destination or which countries your rule lists. The page is served with HTTP 403, marked noindex so search engines leave it out, and never cached — the same short URL answers differently depending on who opens it.
With a fallback URL, blocked visitors are redirected there instead — a regional version of the page, a waitlist, or a note explaining where the offer is available. It must be a full http:// or https:// address.
Blocked visits are not recorded as clicks. They do not appear in analytics, do not count toward tracked clicks, and do not fire webhooks or integrations.
Visitors whose country is unknown
Sometimes a country can't be determined: the lookup failed or timed out, the visitor is on a private network, or they come through certain VPNs and proxies. By default these visitors are let through, which is right for most blocklists — you turn away the countries you named and nobody else.
Turn on Block visitors whose country can't be determined when the rule has to be strict — typically an allowlist that must admit only the listed countries. The trade-off is that a genuine visitor whose lookup fails is turned away too.
Performance and privacy
- No rule, no lookup. When no rule is active for a link — the workspace rule is off and the link has none, or the link is set to No restriction — the redirect does not look up the visitor's IP at all.
- When a rule is active, Letlink looks up the visitor's IP with ipinfo, our IP geolocation provider. Only the IP address is sent; private and reserved addresses are never sent and count as unknown.
- Results are cached per IP address, so repeat visits from the same address need no new lookup.
- An uncached lookup adds a short delay to that first redirect, capped at about 1.5 seconds. If the lookup takes longer, the country counts as unknown and your unknown-country setting decides.
Limitations
- Detection is IP-based. A visitor on a VPN, proxy or Tor appears to be wherever that exit is, so a determined visitor can get around a block — and a traveller or a corporate network can be blocked by mistake.
- IP geolocation data is occasionally wrong or out of date, especially for newly assigned address ranges and mobile carriers.
- It is not a compliance guarantee. Use it to steer and filter traffic, not as the only control where you are legally required to restrict access; the destination should enforce anything it is obliged to.
- Bots and link-preview crawlers follow the rule too. When a link is pasted into a chat app or social network, the preview is fetched from that platform's servers, which may sit in a country your rule blocks. The preview can then fail or show the blocked page, even though the link opens fine for people in allowed countries.
Plans and downgrades
Country access is part of the Solo, Growth and Ultimate plans. On Free a rule cannot be switched on.
If the workspace moves down to Free, rules stop being enforced: every link opens for every country and no lookups happen. The rules themselves are kept, not deleted — you can still see what was configured, switch rules off, or set links back to the workspace rule — and they apply again as soon as the workspace is back on a paid plan.