GS1 Digital Link Syntax

Best practices
for creating
your QR Code
powered by GS1

If you have a QR Code on your product, it’s almost certainly

A GS1 Digital Link URI is
because you want to interact with your customers.
a special kind of URL that
Traditional QR Codes contain a URL that points to an online performs two functions:
experience of some kind, such as more information about the 1. Identifies a product
product, promotions, usage ideas and more. 2. Provides an entry point
to digital information
about the product
We’d like to show you how you can upgrade a traditional QR
Code to also scan at checkout by adding the same GS1 Global It’s very carefully structured
to allow your product’s
Trade Item Number® (GTIN®) that is in your product’s EAN/
identification number to be
UPC. You can also add things like expiration dates, batch/lot read directly by a barcode
numbers and serial numbers, all of which can be retrieved scanner while also linking to
online information from a mobile
without an online lookup.
phone’s camera or a more
specialised app.

There is a lot of flexibility built

“ When we embedded GS1 Digital

into the standard to allow you to
create your GS1 Digital Link URI
in the way that makes the most
Link Syntax in our QR Codes, sense for your business. And
the following sections are
something magical happened. We designed to help you make
those choices.
connected everything to everyone
at any time.”
— Marcelo Silva
FOUNDER AND OWNER, PARLA DELI
 Best practice 1
Tech detail
Use the brand’s internet domain Any internet domain name can
Let’s start with a simple example that just carries a Global Trade Item Number be used, as it does not
(GTIN): contribute to the identification
of your item. It does, however,
https://example.com/01/09506000134352 determine where someone
scanning your QR Code is
taken to on the web. A
Internet domain name GS1 identifier specialist app, such as a
retailer’s app, can replace your
domain name with theirs and
Best practice provide information about the
If you can use any domain name, what is better than your own? It is recommended same product (with the same
that you build your GS1 Digital Link URIs on a domain name you own and control. GTIN) from their system. It’s
For a branded product, use the brand’s domain name. the GS1 identifiers that identify
For example: https://dalgiardino.com/01/09506000134352 the product, not the full URL.

Benefits

1. Consumers will be confident that the URL their mobile phone will take them to is part of the brand, and they will be
more likely to follow the link.

2. The internet domain name is a brand asset that can be transferred if the brand is sold or acquired. 2D barcodes
containing a GS1 Digital Link URI on the brand’s internet domain name will not need to be reprinted following the
change of ownership of the brand.

Best practice 2
Tech detail
Use a subdomain
A subdomain is entirely
Using a subdomain, the generic example becomes
controlled by the domain
owner but is separate from
https://sub.example.com/01/09506000134352 other parts of the domain.
The aim is to distinguish
between the identity of the
Domain name GS1 identifier
product and the location of
Subdomain
online information about it.
Using a subdomain makes it
Best practice much less likely that those GS1
Digital Link URIs will be
A subdomain can be anything, but we recommend using simply “id” to
broken the next time your
give a hint that this is an identifier for your item. To continue our
website is refreshed.
Dal Giardino example, the GS1 Digital Link URI becomes:
https://id.dalgiardino.com/01/09506000134352

Benefits

1. The key benefit is that you can manage product identity separately from the rest of your website,
perhaps by different people or teams. The processes managing a brand’s website, for example, will
be very different from the processes behind GTIN management. The use of a subdomain helps to
keep them separate.

2. If you want to analyse how often, where and when your GS1 Digital Link 2D barcodes are scanned,
using a subdomain keeps the statistics separate from those measuring visits to your website.

2
 Best practice 3 Tech detail
You see redirection all the time.
Use redirection For example, if you
When you need to connect your product’s identifier—the GS1 Digital Link URI—to click this link https://kwz.
its electronic information about the product, the best way is by redirection. me/hfi1, you will be redirected
to https://dalgiardino.com/
Best practice risotto-rice-with-mushrooms/.
This second URL is where you’ll
If someone scans a QR Code powered by GS1 on your product, they will expect find information about this
to be taken to information about that specific product. The redirection mustn’t fictitious product. Redirection
lead to somewhere requiring the user to click more links or search for the is a fundamental aspect of
information they’re after. This can create a poor consumer experience, and the the World Wide Web and can
user may leave the site without getting any information they find valuable. be set up by any website
The simplest thing to do is to redirect to the relevant page about your product administrator. Redirection is
on your website. It’s also possible to redirect to a solution provider or any other usually visible to the end user so
service. Remember, if it’s on the web, you can redirect to it. that the address they see in
their browser changes. Still, it’s
Talk to your local GS1 Member Organisation about how GS1 Digital Link possible to redirect internally in
allows you to link to multiple sources of information at the same time. a way that avoids this if desired.

Benefits

1. You can update where your GS1 Digital Link URI redirects to at any time without having to change your packaging.
For example, you might link to a promotion for a limited period before switching the redirect back to the usual
product information page.

2. Making use of redirection means that you can retain the distinction between the GS1 Digital Link URI as the identifier
for your product and the electronic information about it.

1
The kwz.me service is run by a private individual and is used purely as an example. It is not suitable for use in production-grade systems.

3
 “ 2D barcodes have immense
potential, and we’re excited to see
how they will improve traceability
and stock management.”
— Richard Plunkett
GENERAL MANAGER, BUSINESS ENABLEMENT,
WOOLWORTHS

Best practice 4

Keep it short

You can add extra details to your GS1 Digital Link URIs but the shorter the GS1
Digital Link URI, the smaller the 2D barcode.

One way to minimise the size of the 2D barcode is to use upper case letters for
the scheme and domain name. Upper case letters are more efficiently encoded
than lower case ones in barcodes while, on the internet, the scheme (https) and
domain name are case-insensitive. This means that HTTPS://EXAMPLE.COM and
https://example.com are effectively the same. Using the more efficient form may
reduce the size of your 2D barcode. Note that this is not true for the remainder of
the URI. For example, a serial number of ABCDE is not the same as abcde.

Best practice

Include information that supports business processes, such as expiry

dates and batch numbers (see next section), but do not add any
information to the GS1 Digital Link URI that is not necessary.
This example: https://id.dalgiardino.com/01/09506000134352
does not include any extraneous information. The shorter the GS1 Digital
Link URI, the smaller the 2D barcode.

If you have a particularly long brand name, then you may need to consider
establishing a separate internet domain entirely that is a recognisable abbreviation
of the brand. For example, “dgno” might be a suitable shorter version of Dal
Giardino, but only do this if necessary, bearing in mind that using your full brand
name will give consumers the most confidence to scan.

Benefits

1. Including more information in the GS1 Digital Link URI than is necessary is likely to be driven by marketing
efforts in operation at the time. This makes it much more likely that you’ll want to change it in the future, as
marketing campaigns are constantly evolving. If this happens, you’ll need to change the 2D code on all your
items. Keeping the data encoded to a minimum makes it much more likely that the code can remain unchanged
indefinitely.

4
 Tech detail
You can add extra details to
Best practice 5 your GS1 Digital Link URIs,
however, the longer it is, the
Include data to support business processes bigger your QR Code will be.
For example: https://long-
The previous best practice warns against adding extra information to your GS1 brand-name.example.com/gs1-
Digital Link URI that is not related to product identity. That doesn’t mean it’s digital-link/
bad practice to add additional information such as batch/lot numbers, serial numbers, productname/01/09506000134
expiry dates, etc., that can be very useful in supply chain and retail processes. It is the ability to 352 is valid. This is because
add exactly this kind of information that is the primary motivation for GS1’s global migration to everything to the left of the
2D barcodes. actual GS1 identifiers is not part
of the identification of the item,
Best practice however, it will create a large
QR Code.
Use a tool to create a demo GS1 Digital Link URI barcode. GS1 provides a
simple tool at https://gs1.github.io/2d-barcode-generator/, but many
barcode generator software packages can do this too. You can always test The details of which type of
whether your GS1 Digital Link URI is valid at https://www.gs1.org/ identifier goes where in the GS1
standards/gs1-barcodes/gs1-barcode-syntax-resource. Digital Link URI are out of scope
for this document, but they are
very specific.

Benefits

1. As already mentioned, a GS1 Digital Link URI is not “any old URL.” It contains GS1 identifiers in a particular structure
so that they can be extracted and used, for example, at the point of sale, without needing to make an online lookup.
Using tooling dramatically reduces the opportunities for errors.

2. Nevertheless, a GS1 Digital Link URI is a URL so that a consumer can use their smartphone’s camera without a
specialist app and be taken (via redirection) to whatever information you want to provide. But that structure
can also be recognised by specialist apps using the GS1 identifiers to provide their own information.

Questions about the future of QR Codes powered by GS1?

For authoritative detail of QR Codes powered by GS1, see the GS1 Digital Link URI syntax

standard. For more general discussion and help, see the GS1 Digital Link quick start guide or

contact your local GS1 Member Organisation to see how GS1 can help you begin your journey

towards a new dimension in barcodes!

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