Links cost you reach on X: four routing patterns that still work
Posting a bare link on X buries the post. Four routing patterns that keep reach intact, and how to check whether X sends anyone who actually buys.
You have probably run the experiment without meaning to. The same idea, posted twice, a fortnight apart. The version with a link in it did a fraction of the numbers of the version without. It is widely observed, it has never been written down as a rule anyone can quote, and it changes often enough that arguing about the mechanism is a waste of an afternoon. The practical position is simple: assume a link in the main post costs you distribution, and design your posting around that assumption rather than complaining about it.
The problem with every workaround
Every routing pattern adds friction. That is the entire trade: you keep the reach of the post and you lose some of the people who would have tapped a link if one had been there. A reply containing the link is one more tap and one more decision. An address people have to type is more effort still. Nobody has found a version of this with no cost.
The second problem is that the rules move. What suppresses reach this quarter may not next quarter, and there is no changelog. Anyone who tells you they know the current weighting is guessing confidently. The only defence is to run your own comparisons on your own account, at small scale, repeatedly.
The third is measurement. In-app browsers are inconsistent about passing on where a visitor came from, so a portion of the people arriving from X will show up in your analytics without a source at all. You are reading a smudged number, and the fix is not a better tool, it is looking at direction over a fortnight instead of precision on a Tuesday.
Posting links the usual way, or routing to a page you can read
The routing patterns below are worth almost nothing if the destination is vague. Whichever pattern you use, the people who make the extra tap should land somewhere that answers the post immediately, with your products on it and numbers coming back to you. That is what a storefront page does that a raw link to a file does not.
| Posting links the usual way | Routing to a page you can read |
|---|---|
| Link sits in the main post and the post travels less far. | The main post travels normally, and the link waits one step away for the people who want it. |
| The destination changes, so old posts point at nothing. | The destination is store.fan/you, and you edit the page instead of the posts. |
| A long tracking URL nobody could retype. | A short address that survives being read aloud or typed from memory. |
| Clicks, if you can see them, are one flat number. | Views, buyers and revenue reported per product, with the traffic source attached. |
| No way to tell a good week from a lucky one. | A fortnight of per-product numbers to compare against the fortnight before. |
| A sale means sending someone to a checkout somewhere else. | A sale happens on your own page, with 0% platform fee on every plan and money going to your Stripe account. |
Four patterns, and how to set them up
Build the destination first. Everything below assumes there is a single page worth arriving at, so make that in your dashboard before you post anything.
- 1Set the destination. In your dashboard, open Products and make the one thing this fortnight's posts point at. If it is free, set the price to 0 so it collects an email and adds the person to your customer list. In the storefront designer, drag it to the top of your page.
- 2Pattern one, the reply. Post the thought on its own, let it breathe for an hour, then reply to yourself with the link and one sentence saying what is behind it. Works best on posts that are already moving.
- 3Pattern two, the spoken address. Write the address into the post as plain text rather than as a link, in a form short enough to retype. This costs you the tap convenience and keeps the post intact, which is the right trade for evergreen posts.
- 4Pattern three, the profile route. End the post with a plain instruction to look at your profile, and make sure the profile link is the same storefront address as everywhere else. Fewer people follow through, and the ones who do are more interested.
- 5Pattern four, the thread payoff. Write a thread that is genuinely complete on its own, then put the link in the final post as the place to get the artefact version. The link is not the ending, it is a bonus after the ending.
- 6Measure it properly. Note the date and your per-product view counts before you start. Run one pattern for a fortnight, then another for the next fortnight, and compare the X-attributed traffic and the product views across the two.
A four-week comparison you can actually run
Suppose you post most days. For a fortnight, use the reply pattern on everything and put nothing in the main post. Write down the X-attributed views on your main product at the start and at the end. For the next fortnight, switch to the plain-text address pattern and keep everything else the same: same posting times, same topics, same rate.
Two things usually show up. First, the reply pattern sends more people, because a tap beats retyping. Second, the plain-text pattern sends fewer but slightly more committed people, because typing an address is a small act of intent. Which one you want depends on whether you are collecting free downloads or selling something considered. Neither result is guaranteed, and one month proves less than three, so keep the note and run it again in the quarter. What you are building is a habit of reading your own numbers rather than repeating advice you read once.
Set up one page worth routing to before your next fortnight of posting.
Create your pageThe mistake most people make
They use the reply pattern on posts that never moved. The reply trick works because the post already has attention, and adding the link afterwards catches people who arrived on their own. On a post with forty views, replying to yourself with a link is just a link, published twice. Wait for the post to earn the reply, and if it never does, let it go. The other version of the same mistake is routing everything at a page that has not been touched since March, which is a good reason to spend an hour with the storefront designer and see what a first-time visitor actually meets. It is available on every plan, including Free.
They make the address tidier and they can make the destination harder to trust, which matters more than the aesthetics. A short address on your own domain is better than a shortener nobody recognises, and it also survives being read out loud.
Yes, on the posts where the link is the point: a launch, a deadline, a new product. Spend the reach deliberately. The mistake is spending it on every post out of habit and then wondering why nothing travels.
Long enough for the post to have found its audience, which is usually a couple of hours rather than ten minutes. If you are unsure, wait until the numbers stop climbing quickly, then reply.
Because they measure different things and in-app browsers lose information between the two. Compare each source with its own history rather than comparing two platforms' numbers against each other, which is a reliable way to drive yourself mad.
None of this is a trick played on a platform. It is just accepting that the main post is for reach and the link is for the people who already decided. Keep the two separate, keep the destination sharp, and check once a fortnight whether X is actually sending anyone. If it is not, that is useful to know as well.
Give your posts one clear destination and start seeing where your visitors come from.
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