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QRtub has three ways to create a Link, and they differ in exactly one thing: who chooses the slug. Random slugs are drawn by QRtub, numbered slugs come from a pattern you reserve, and custom slugs are typed by you. Everything downstream — destinations, Items, Pages, printing — works identically whichever you pick. Pick Random unless you have a reason not to. Pick Numbered when the tag needs a human-readable number that matches an asset scheme. Pick Custom when a person will read the address out loud or type it from memory.

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The three types side by side

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When Random is right

Anything that is scanned rather than read. Codes on a sheet of stickers, spares in a drawer, a batch going out for print where nobody cares what the address says. It is the fastest route — nothing to configure, nothing that can collide, and it is the mode QRtub uses when a new Collection mints a Link automatically for each new Item. The trade-off is that a random slug carries no meaning and is unforgiving to type: it is matched case-sensitively, so someone entering it by hand has to get it exactly right.

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When Numbered is right

When the physical tag already has a number, or should have one. A plate that reads CRA0042TL and resolves at qrtub.com/cra0042tl gives your crew one identifier instead of two — no mapping back to a spreadsheet, nothing to mistype twice. It is also the only type that mints in real bulk: one range request can create up to a thousand sequential codes. The cost is that a pattern is a commitment. A prefix, digit count and suffix combination is claimed exclusively, and once Links exist against it you cannot delete the pattern without deleting those Links first.

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When Custom is right

When a human is the interface. A meeting-room sign, a poster, a business card, anything where someone might say “go to qrtub.com/boardroom”. Custom slugs are the only type you fully control, and the only type validated against a reserved-word list — QRtub blocks slugs that would collide with its own routes and brand terms. They are also the slowest: one at a time, each one checked for availability, so they are a poor fit for a print run of five hundred.

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Mixing types is normal

A team routinely runs all three: numbered plates on the equipment fleet, random codes for the spares box, a handful of custom slugs for the front-of-house signage. Types are chosen per Link at creation, not per team or per Collection, and nothing about a Link’s type restricts what it can point at. One constraint worth knowing before you commit: a Link’s slug is fixed after creation. You can repoint it, reassign it, or delete it, but you cannot convert a random Link into a custom one — you create the Link you want and retire the other.