Gmail Unclickable Links Can Hurt You… See How To Prevent It!
In this quick video I show you how to prevent that the Gmail unclickable link problem / bug can hurt your Email Marketing click conversion rates…
If you found this video after searching for a solution to fix the links in Gmail emails you received from others, please share this video with them so they can prevent the problem in the future.
Update April 28th 2015: Google has fixed this problem since back when I reported about it first, but I noticed that these days, uppercase letters in the domain name part of your links can cause Google to deliver the email into the spam box. So it’s still better not to use uppercase letters in the domain name part of links inside your emails. If you send HTML emails, you can use upper case characters (in the domain name) in the anchor text part, just not in the href of the link.
‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.’
Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich
To your success,
Frank Bauer
Director of Add2it.com Marketing Pty Ltd
Co-founder of ViralURL.com, ViralHosts.com & TimeToOutsource.com
P.S. – My good Aussie buddy Walter just launched a cool new email marketing system that will help you grow your list even while sending people to funny YouTube videos. 🙂 It’s free to join, but I highly recommend to take his one-time offer into serious consideration.
Click here to get a free Executive membership in Power List Marketing!
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I always check my own links as much as possible, occasionally safemails get sent with unclickables but the lists usually have the credit link at the bottom which is supposed to be clickable. I noticed the Gmail problem last week also created a loss of views from one of the big lists I was on, they found out how to fix it by adding www to the beginning of their credit links, they didn’t have to do that before but now that was the solution to unclickables in Gmails. We can’t depend on the readers to copy and paste the unclickables into their browser. People are in a hurry and many only do the easiest thing in front of them. If the link ain’t blue, less money for you! That’s a good online business slogan, I just made it up!
I absolutely agree with you Kathleen… anybody the does email marketing needs to either make sure they have the lower case www. in the links or at least make sure the first section after the http:// is all in lower case.
Thanks Frank!
Hi Frank , I read about you on Alex Mandossians blog , very useful information, thanks for sharing with us
thanks helpful
Thank you so much for sharing your tip AND for making it so clear and easy to understand.
THANKS FRANK!!!!
Hey Buddy, It’s Greg Snead from www.askyourtravelbuddy.com
Well, you know how them ‘Youngin’s from Google truly believe they are the Kings of Babylon….between them and the Facebook folk….I tell you…There’s that old saying…What goes around~comes around…to bite ‘ya in the..(Fill in ‘yo Blank)
Those of us in the “we gonna distribute everything everywhere anyway” business are Hunting ways to Be Productive…By Any Means Necessary…Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now..We’re On The MOVE!
Peace & Blessings to You & Yours this day and all days, Frm: TheZamZuuNation!
thanks,
very valuable insight on what works in Gmail and what doesn’t.
Robert
This is exactly what I was looking for today.
Thanks for sharing this great video!
Thank you so much, Frank! Alex sent me the link to your post and I’m so glad he did. It’s a great “heads-up” that I’ll start fixing in my emails right away.
You too have an awesome weekend!
Evelyn
Thanks, Frank. Without you we may have never known why our links weren’t working!
Thanks Frank. Found this via Alex Mandossian and I must say I had no idea. I just wrote a ton of messages into my autoresponder that I decided not to run through aweber’s linking tracker — and now I will have to go back and check all those links. Great info!
Thanks to everybody for your kind remarks. 🙂
And thanks to Alex for sharing the video with his blog readers. 🙂
BTW… here is a picture from the even where Alex & I met the first time ever in September 2007…
picasaweb.google.com/frank.add2it/WIMESanFrancisco#5448667512942991874
Best regards,
Frank Bauer
Hi Frank, I heard about this through Alex. Thanks so much for clearing this up, your video was super helpful, and I tweeted to my crowd!
Regards
Amanda Seyderhelm
Hi Frank,
Thanks for the useful information. But I am confused.
I just sent a test email to my gmail account with only my sig file:
www.TaxMama.com Where taxes are fun!
www.TaxMama.com/TaxQuips And Answers are free
www.IRSExams.com Become an Enrolled Agent
www.MarketWatch.com the TaxWatch column
It was visible. The links worked.
Hi Frank,
That is a truly useful tip. Thank you!
Tom Justin
Thanks I used to capitalize my URL but I usually used the www. first now I’ll be certain to.
this explanation was easy to understand not like the intros that got me here by Alex Mandossia.
Thank you, Frank. Great heads up. I check my links pretty diligently, but it is good to know gmail has this restriction.
~JT
Good catch but your testing if very incomplete.
Yes text email is subject to case sensitivity.
However HTML is not.
I sent an email with all your examples in it to my Gmail. It was formatted to clickable links from Outlook to Gmail. My Outlook is set to it’s default settings. (HTML)
HTML email (like 99% of the email world sends by default) is not subject to this.
You need to test this on mobile phone email from popular phones like Windows mobile, Androids and iPhones.
Then Outlook. Then Yahoo. Then Hotmail.
If you are going to write an article on this and a video you should have fully tested this so I did not have to. You should go back and do this right. I don’t have time to test Aweber but I am guessing if you send text email the result would be the same.
Lastly, this is of little matter because anyone that knows what they are doing sends tracking links and that is what shows up in Gmail, not the final destination.
This is a good catch but it only occurs as far as I can see when you send a plain text email or Gmail to Gmail and Yahoo to Gmail. Hate Hotmail too much to check…..
Hi Frank, Thank you very much for your entry on how to make sure links are clickable. It seems so silly, google’s rules around what is and what isn’t clickable – even sillier not to follow the rules and lose clicks. Thank you very much. I’m sending out an update today – and I will be very sure to follow this new little google rule. Elsa
Thank you Frank. I read about this on Alex’s blog and I’m glad you thoughtfully shared this issue with all of us.
Hi Eva,
If you use www. in front of your links that contain capital letters, you are fine. 🙂
Regards,
Frank Bauer
@Chris Lang: I should probably apologize to you for not testing this to your standards. BTW… nice picture, very fitting. 🙂
I personally prefer to send like 99% of the smart marketers out there in plain text and not HTML to give spam filters one less chance to dump my emails.
Anyway… good to know that this is not an issue in HTML emails. 🙂
To all others: Thanks so much for your continued thankful remarks. Very much appreciated. 🙂
Thanks Frank. That explains a lot about why some of the links turn out to be unclickable in emails. I will pass this on to my clients as well.
Alex sent me. Thank you for the info!
Have a great day.
Lesly
Hi, I wasn’t able to duplicate this problem in gmail to gmail. Possible they’ve fixed it?
what a nice and useful thing to do….
@Josh: Did you send your test email as a plain text email or as a HTML email? I tested it in plain text.
thanks to you & Alex Mandossian for alerting us : I’ve posted about it to my subscribers too (with links back to your sites too), so hopefully it will reduce any potential impact on people. Much appreciated, keep up this great work 🙂
Regards
Tracey
Hi Frank,
Alex Mandossian sent me over to see your video. Oh my!
I was about to make a great mistake in my latest email marketing venture!
Thank you for the heads up :-))
very good detective work, good information and it will come in handy in the future. Thank you for sharing this. Got to your site via Alex Mandossian.
Thanks for the alert Frank. I thank AlexMandossian also for posting your note. This is in itself viral marketing.
Hi Frank,
Interesting video.
This is a bit later than the above posts but I am afraid that this does not work for me :o(
I have tried your suggestions using both html and plain text but unfortunately nothing is happening.
My problems started a few days ago and needless to say any masked links are complete non-starters.
Despite a lot of checking I cannot find any answers on the net or from Google.
What will Google do next I wonder?
Dave
Hi Dave,
What is the link that is not clickable in your email to Gmail users?
How is it exactly spelled and capitalized?
Best regards,
Frank Bauer
Great information and this definitely helps me with my email marketing. You have a great straight to the point style of explaining things that is great. Great video and Alex sent me.