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A Custom Link is one where you type the slug yourself: qrtub.com/boardroom, qrtub.com/site-office, qrtub.com/menu_2026. Use it when a person will read the address aloud or type it from memory — a room sign, a poster, a card — rather than scan it. Custom Links are created one at a time. Each one is checked for availability as it is created, so they are the wrong tool for a print run of hundreds; use Random or Numbered for that.

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The character rules

A custom slug must:
  • be 3 to 50 characters long
  • contain only lowercase letters, digits, hyphens and underscores
  • start with a letter, a digit or an underscore
  • end with a letter or a digit
  • contain no two hyphens in a row
Anything you type is lowercased and trimmed first, so entering My-Product gives you my-product rather than an error. Everything else is a hard rejection: ab is too short, site office contains a space, crane- ends with a hyphen, red--crane has a double hyphen. Consecutive underscores are fine. These rules are enforced when the Link is written, not only in the form, so the same limits apply to slugs created through a CSV import.

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Reserved words

QRtub blocks a list of slugs outright, because handing them out would collide with its own addresses or mislead the people scanning them. The list covers:
  • App and system paths — app, api, r, login, signup, auth, account, checkout, static, assets
  • Marketing and public pages — pricing, about, contact, features, docs, help, support, faq, blog, terms, privacy, security, status
  • Brand terms — qrtub, qr, qrcode, link, thing
  • Dashboard and identity words — admin, dashboard, settings, console, user, users, me, team, teams, org
  • Plan and platform words — pro, plus, premium, enterprise, ios, android, download, mobile
The check ignores case, so Admin is blocked for the same reason admin is. The practical consequence: short, generic, single-word slugs are the ones most likely to be refused. Add something specific — qrtub.com/acme-support instead of qrtub.com/support — and you are almost always clear.

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Two other reasons a slug can be refused

It is already in use. Slugs are unique across every team in QRtub, compared without regard to case. If someone else holds boardroom, you cannot have it, and QRtub says so rather than quietly giving you a variant. It falls inside a numbered pattern your team owns. This is the one that looks like a bug and is not. If your team has claimed the pattern cra + 4 digits, then cra0042 is reserved for that pattern’s use — even though no Link has been minted at that number yet, and nothing appears in your Links list using it. QRtub rejects the custom slug because minting it would let a hand-typed address hijack a slot the numbering scheme is counting on. Pick a slug outside the pattern’s shape, or use a Numbered Link if that number is genuinely what you want.

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The slug is permanent

Once created, a custom slug cannot be edited. You can change where it points as often as you like, turn it off, or delete it, but the address itself is fixed — a printed sign has to keep resolving. Get the spelling right before you commit, and where a mistake has already been printed, create the corrected Link and retire the old one rather than trying to rename it.