Link in Bio

Share

What Does "Link in Bio" Mean?

Link in bio is a phrase found on posts on social media platforms that restrict the reach of posts that have links. For example, Facebook and Instagram are platforms that will limit a post's reach if it contains any links. To get around this limitation, users place the link in their "bio," which is the user's description on their profile page.

Sometimes, this link may be to a service such as Link Tree [https://linktr.ee/] whose sole purpose is to have links to various pages of a person.

Danger: the reason these platforms implement this measure is to combat bots that will spam the platform with links to malicious websites containing scams or computer viruses. For example, cryptocurrency scams telling you to send some bitcoin somewhere to earn a prize in money, or webpages that tell you that your smartphone is infected and you need to install an app to clean it. Clicking on a link is often (but not always!) not harmful by itself thanks to decades of security research employed on the development of web browsers. It's typically after a person clicks on a link that they get mislead into installing a virus, handing away money, or giving the attacker personal information that they can use to damage the victim. The most common form of hack is always about social engineering.

How do I See the Link in Bio?

Go to the user's profile page, where their "bio" (the text the user can write to describe themselves) is written.

Written by Noel Santos.

About the Author

I'm a self-taught Brazilian programmer graduated in IT from a FATEC. In a world of increasingly complex and essential computers, I decided to use my technical expertise in hardware, desktop applications, and web technologies to create an informative resource to make PC's easier to understand.

View Comments