How to Create an Online Poll and Share It by Link

Updated 2026-09-30

You can create a poll on Polltab without signing up: type a question, add choices as text, images, or both, pick a voting security mode, and share the link. Votes appear in real time. The main decision you have to make is how strict the voting security should be — that choice determines how much friction voters face and how much you can trust the results.

Step 1: Build the question and choices

In the poll creator, you enter one question and then add choices. Each choice can be:

Text only — fastest to make, works for opinions, names, or options.
Image only — useful when the choice is visual (designs, logos, photos).
Text and image together — best when voters need both a label and a visual reference.

Polltab's form supports all three, so you don't have to decide the format before you start.

Step 2: Choose a voting security mode

This is the part most people rush, and it's the part that decides whether your results mean anything. Polltab offers several layers, from loosest to strictest:

Mode	What it restricts	When it fits
Unlimited	No restrictions	Casual, low-stakes polls where volume matters more than precision
Cookie	1 vote per browser	Small friendly polls; easy to bypass by clearing cookies or switching browsers
IP specific	1 vote per household/ISP	Slightly stronger than cookies, but shared networks (offices, schools) count as one voter
Google login	Requires Google account	When you need one vote per person and don't mind the sign-in step
Facebook login	Requires Facebook account	Same idea, for audiences already on Facebook
Reddit login	Requires Reddit account	Community polls where the audience lives on Reddit

You can also enable captcha ("prevent bot voting") as an additional layer on top of these. The practical rule: match the security to the stakes. A poll among friends can stay on cookie or unlimited; a poll that decides something real should use account-only voting plus captcha.

Step 3: Set optional rules

Before publishing, you can turn on:

Allow multiple choice — voters pick more than one option.
Prevent bot voting (captcha) — adds a human check.
Hide results until the poll ends — stops early votes from influencing later ones.

You also control timing:

Start: immediately, or scheduled for later.
End: no end date, a fixed duration, or a custom end time.

Step 4: Publish and share the link

Creating the poll requires no sign-up. Once it's created, you get a link to share — that's the whole distribution mechanism. Anyone with the link can open it and vote, subject to whatever security mode you chose.

Step 5: Watch results in real time

Results update live as votes come in, so you can share the poll and watch the tally change without refreshing a dashboard manually. If you notice suspicious patterns — a sudden spike, or results that look like one person voting repeatedly — that's the signal to switch to a stricter mode (account login plus captcha) and re-run the poll.

Quick decision guide

Fastest possible poll, don't care about duplicates: unlimited or cookie, no captcha.
Want one vote per person without forcing sign-in: IP specific, accept that shared networks undercount.
Results need to be defensible: Google/Facebook/Reddit login plus captcha, and hide results until the poll ends.
Poll is visual: use image or text+image choices rather than text alone.

Polltab reports over 300 million polls created and 9+ billion votes cast across 180+ countries, so the no-signup, share-by-link flow is the standard path rather than an edge case.