Creating a Survey Web Link

Updated: 05/10/2013

A Web Link is the most common way to distribute your survey. Web links can be posted to a website, sent in an email through your personal email, and otherwise shared with your audience. You can create multiple Web Links for a single survey.

Default Web Link

Upon project creation, a Default Link is created automatically (1). Additional Web Links can be created by clicking the Web Link button (2).

Existing Links, Embeds and Integrations

To easily filter your links, embeds and integrations (if you have a large number of them) use the sorting tabs.  There is also pagination available at the bottom to assist you in navigating a large number of links and embeds. 

 Quick Navigation

Name of the Web Link The Web Link URL Share this Link - Click to get an easily copy the link (great for when your link is very long) Number of completed responses collected via this specific Web Link Themes used for your Link/Campaign. Individual links can have individual themes (at Enterprise plans and above)

Link Settings

Change the name of the Web Link. Active links will collect data.  Closed links will display the Close Message (10) when accessed. Enterprise plans and up and Dedicated customers can switch to a Secure SSL encrypted link, which is compatible with the Sub-Types (4): Default and Short URL The Default link is compatible with all plan levels, while the Short link, Branded Subdomain and Private Domain are features available for paid plans and give the greatest amount of branding. (Optional) Set up cookie-based vote protection for this link. (Optional) Set a quota to limit the number of completed responses collected with this Web Link. Once the quota is met, the Close Message is displayed (10) (Optional) These dates will effect the Status (2) of the survey accessed via this link.  Outside the the Start and Stop dates and times, the Web Link will display the Close Message (10) (Optional) Anyone using this Web Link will automatically have any URL Variables specified here included with their response.  These URL Variables will not be visible to the survey taker. The default setting of Auto will detect the language of the survey taker's browser and display the survey in that language, if available in Text & Translations. You can also choose a specific language for this Web Link by selecting it from the dropdown. This close message will be displayed to survey takers who access link after the Status (2) of the link is closed.  If the status of the survey is changed to closed the close message specified in Settings will override this close message.

Types of Web Links (Sub-Type)

Each Sub-Type offers a slightly different format. All of the options offer some level of personalization of the link, with the Private Domain being the only one that completely excludes SurveyGizmo branding in the URL. The parts of the URL in bold can be altered on a per Web Link basis:

• Default: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/320752/iPhone-Example
• Branded Subdomain: http://acme.iPhone-Example.sgizmo.com/s3/
• Short URL: http://sgiz.mobi/s3/67f264d87747
• Private Domain: http:// surveys.yourcompany.com/s3/iPhone-Example

Adding Links to your Account After your Survey is Live

You can add links to your survey at any time, we just recommend not changing your current active survey link if you've already distributed it because your respondents will no longer be able to access the link.

In that situation, all you need to do is create a new web link and then distribute that to your respondents. This means if you add a private domain, you can change your new link to a private domain and send it out!

To learn more about what you can and cannot do after you've distributed your survey, please visit: Editing a Live Survey (What can happen?) Tutorial.

Character Limits on Links

When creating links, please keep the following numbers in mind:

253 characters is the maximum length of full domain name, including dots: e.g. www.example.com = 15 characters.

We recommend keeping links under 100 characters, as anything over that becomes unwieldy and can be rather intimidating to respondents. Also, some email clients will potentially truncate excessively long links.

63 characters in the maximum length of a "label" (part of domain name separated by dot). Labels for www.example.com are com, example and www.

Have questions? Want to comment on this? Join the discussion on our SurveyGizmo Support site.