Sources & method
Structure is evidence.
It isn't a verdict.
LinkLens uses the browser's URL parser to explain the address you supplied. Nothing about the destination website is fetched or verified.
How the reader works
- Accept one explicit HTTP or HTTPS URL up to 12,000 characters. Reject other schemes, missing schemes, internal whitespace and backslashes rather than silently guessing.
- Use
new URL()to obtain the hostname, scheme, effective port, path, query and fragment. The full hostname is shown. No public-suffix list, DNS lookup or owner inference is used. - Explain user information before
@, HTTP, internationalized names, IP notation, non-default ports, trailing dots and long hostnames. These observations are not a risk score. - Check query names for credential-like words and show a general privacy notice for all query strings. This heuristic cannot identify every secret. Paths, hostnames and fragments may also contain sensitive information.
- Look for HTTP(S) or protocol-relative URLs inside query values, with at most two additional percent-decoding passes after the standard query parser. Repeated keys are kept. Only their parsed hostnames are shown. No recursion, server response or script analysis is performed.
Primary references
- MDN: URL.hostname documents hostname extraction and normalization, including IP and internationalized names.
- MDN: URL.username distinguishes user information from the host.
- Google Chrome: connection security distinguishes a private connection from the need to check the site name before sharing information.
- FTC: recognizing and avoiding phishing informs the independent-contact checklist and next steps after disclosure.
- CISA: Personal Security Considerations Action Guide, June 2024 identifies urgency, requests for personal information and untrusted links as phishing indicators. This is a dated source, not a claim that any one indicator proves fraud.
- VirusTotal: how it works describes scanning and shared reports.
- urlscan: scan visibility levels explains the differences between public, unlisted and private submissions.
What remains unknown
The final destination, actual redirect chain, certificate validity, ownership, site content and reputation remain unknown. Short links cannot be expanded from text alone. An embedded destination may never be used. A real site can be compromised. An ordinary-looking URL is not proof of legitimacy.
Reviewed October 31, 2026. Guides use these sources for education. LinkLens does not claim agency endorsement or provide incident diagnosis.