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the characters in web links are changed when i send email

  • 1 reply
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

daiwatts
daiwatts
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When I send a web link via Thunderbird, it changes some of the characters in the link text so that it won't open the correct page.

Example:

I send the web address https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!composer?id=1453710 to myself.

When I receive the email, the link looks correct- and now shows as a link, i.e. underlined- and the web address in the search bar at the bottom of the email shows the correct address i.e. https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!composer?id=1453710

However when I click on the link it takes me to here https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!explorer and when I examine the link- by 'replying' to the email, to allow me to edit it, then highlighting the link text and hitting the insert link button- I can see that the link has actually been changed to https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#%21composer?id=1453710

So in the course of sending the email, Thunderbird has corrupted the exclamation in the link text to %21.

I'm assuming this is some problem with encoding but haven't been able to resolve it. ( The encoding on outgoing and incoming emails is set to UTF-8.)

Any advice very gratefully received!

When I send a web link via Thunderbird, it changes some of the characters in the link text so that it won't open the correct page. Example: I send the web address https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!composer?id=1453710 to myself. When I receive the email, the link looks correct- and now shows as a link, i.e. underlined- and the web address in the search bar at the bottom of the email shows the correct address i.e. https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!composer?id=1453710 However when I click on the link it takes me to here https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#!explorer and when I examine the link- by 'replying' to the email, to allow me to edit it, then highlighting the link text and hitting the insert link button- I can see that the link has actually been changed to https://musicforsport.sourceaudio.com/#%21composer?id=1453710 So in the course of sending the email, Thunderbird has corrupted the exclamation in the link text to %21. I'm assuming this is some problem with encoding but haven't been able to resolve it. ( The encoding on outgoing and incoming emails is set to UTF-8.) Any advice very gratefully received!

All Replies (1)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 10 Contributor
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re: the exclamation mark becomes %21 No worries on this, it is just ascii code and it is not causing the issue. https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp

I've just checked out the info you supplied and I get the same result.

I sent email with link to myself. When I received the reply, I also was sent to different page like you. On the received email, I clicked on 'More' > 'View source'

I noticed that below the actual link which you/me inserted, there is also another line which starts rel:"no follow" followed by the link.

I then located the 'sent ' copy of the first email I sent. I also saw the same rel:"no follow" followed by the link.

In other words, this is not you nor Thunderbird. It is something done by the webmaster of that website, paid links and the search engine. I've found some good info explaining what is going on. Best to read it rather than me copy pasting the info.

No follow info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/what-is-nofollow/ https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en