Universal Link (or UniLink for short) is a powerful and versatile tool that takes a different approach to sharing media online. A UniLink is generated for each file you publish, regardless of its format, and acts as the universal gateway for anyone wishing to access it. It allows to serve the file directly, process it on the fly, retrieve file metadata, or share it with UniLink Preview.
Universal Links are powered by UniLink Engine - a smart processing and delivery engine that can automatically determine the form of content to serve based on request.
When you request a file via Universal Link, the UniLink Engine first determines whether to serve the file via a Data Source or show the Preview page (see next section to learn more). Preview page can be accessed for any file by appending /
to the end of the URL.
“Binary” means that the file itself will be served, be it an image, video, or document. If on-the-fly transformation parameters are present, the file is processed and then served. Otherwise, it’s served as is. JSON Data Sources include varying sets of metadata depending on the file format and media type.
flowchart TD
id1(Request)--Without /-->id2(Direct file)
id1(Request)--"With /"-->id8(UniLink Preview)
id2-->id3(Binary)
id2--.json-->id4(JSON)
id3--?param=value&...-->id5(Process)
id3-->id6
id5-->id6(Serve file)
id4-->id7(Serve metadata)
Read more about Data Sources and how they work.
UniLink Preview is an SEO-optimized web page that contains file metadata, licensing information, links to your portfolio and social media profiles, and quick links to share or reuse the content in accordance with the license you had previously specified.
Besides, with native support for web rights and licensing metadata used by Google Images, all your published photos get the Google Licensable badge. No additional effort is needed.
Learn about Google Images Licensable badge and how it can boost your exposure in our blog post.
A typical UniLink Preview page looks like this:
Ensuring copyright discoverability and traceability is a critical part of Universal Links and Macula as a whole. Media files you publish and all their transformations always carry essential copyright and licensing metadata: