What is a GS1 Digital Link?

The problem it solves

A traditional barcode — the black-and-white stripes on almost everything you buy — only holds a number: your GTIN (your product's barcode number, usually printed underneath it). A checkout scanner reads that number and looks up your price and product name in the store's own database. That's it. The barcode itself can't take a customer anywhere, because it doesn't contain a web address, just a number.

A QR-style barcode can hold a full web address. So the obvious idea is: put your product page's URL in a QR code instead. The catch is that if every brand invents its own URL shape, a checkout scanner has no reliable way to find the GTIN inside it — it just sees a generic web address. GS1 Digital Link is the fix: a standard way to build that web address so the GTIN is always in the same, predictable place inside it.

What it actually looks like

A GS1 Digital Link URI looks like this:

https://id.yourbrand.com/01/00614141123452

The domain (id.yourbrand.com) can be anyone's — that's deliberate, more on that below. The part that's standardized is /01/00614141123452: the 01 is GS1's code for "what follows is a GTIN," and 00614141123452 is the GTIN itself, written in its full 14-digit form. A checkout scanner reads the number for pricing, the same way it always has. A phone camera opens the whole address as a link, landing on whatever page the brand has pointed it to. One code, both jobs.

The format can carry more than just the product number — a batch or lot code, an expiry date, a serial number — each in its own standardized slot after the GTIN. Codestamp supports batch and lot codes on paid plans; most brands never need more than the base GTIN link.

Your existing barcode number still works

If you already have a UPC or EAN barcode, you already have a GTIN — you don't need to buy a new number to use a GS1 Digital Link. A 12-digit UPC becomes a 14-digit GTIN by adding two leading zeros (so UPC 614141123452 becomes GTIN 00614141123452) — same number, standard 14-digit form. If you don't have a GTIN yet, see our guide to buying one.

Why the domain is yours, not GS1's or ours

GS1 Digital Link is domain-agnostic by design: the standard defines the path structure (the /01/… part), not who hosts it. GS1 runs a free resolver at id.gs1.org that anyone can use, and publishes the resolver software as open source — but neither one puts your brand's name on the link a customer sees, and self-hosting the open-source version is a real infrastructure project. That gap — a resolver that's actually on your domain, without you running a server — is what Codestamp exists to close.

Is this the same thing as "compliant" or "certified"?

Close, but worth being precise about: GS1 publishes the URI Syntax standard and a GS1-Conformant Resolver standard, and conformance to both is self-asserted — there's no certification body that issues a stamp of approval. A tool can be built correctly to the published rules (correct GTIN padding, correct redirect codes, correct AI ordering) and say so honestly as "GS1-conformant." Be wary of anyone who claims "GS1-certified" or "GS1-approved" — that program doesn't exist.