Make a QR code that will still work next year

The important thing about QR codes is one most generators do not mention. Many free services produce a code that points at their own domain and then redirects to yours, so they can count the scans. That is a redirect you do not control, on a printed asset you cannot change, and when the service shuts down or starts charging, every code you printed stops working.

It is not a hypothetical. Businesses have printed codes on menus, signage and packaging that died with the service that generated them, and the only fix is reprinting. A code generated here encodes your URL directly, so nothing sits between the scan and the destination, and there is nothing to expire.

The trade is that a direct code cannot be repointed later and cannot count scans. If you genuinely need either, use a link shortener or redirect you own, on your own domain, and encode that. Then the code is permanent and the destination is still yours to change, which is the arrangement worth having on anything printed.

Error correction is the setting people ignore and then need. Higher correction lets a code still scan when part of it is obscured, scuffed or has a logo over the middle. Print gets damaged, stickers peel, and menus get wet, so anything going onto a physical surface deserves a higher level than the default. It makes the pattern denser, which is a small price.

Then there is the practical testing nobody does. Print it at the size it will actually be, stick it where it will actually go, and scan it from where a person will actually stand, with an ordinary phone rather than a dedicated reader. Codes fail in the real world for dull reasons: too small, too glossy, too high on a wall, or printed in a colour combination with too little contrast for a camera to resolve.

The generation happens in your browser, and the code points where you told it to point. Nothing about the destination is transmitted to us, and nothing is counting the scans.