The Google Alert You Never Got
On March 11th, I received an email alert from my buddy, Marc Harty who posts his PR Traffic tips on this blog.
His email was disturbing because it was in response to an an email he received from my about my Virtual Book Tour with another buddy of mine, Harvey Mackay.
Here’s what Marc wrote me:
Alex, I wanted to let you know this right away … Gmail doesn’t show URLs with initial caps as link. This changed happened recently. For a URL to be a link in Gmail it needs to contain: 1. the “www” and 2. all lowercase . Thought you should know.
Gee, thanks Marc … both my emails for Harvey Mackay were in the queue and sent, so I couldn’t anything about it and I did get over 500 people on that VBT to listen in … but I wonder how many more people could have listened if I was aware of the recent change.
If you’re scratching you head right now say “Huh?” to yourself, then do yourself a favor and watch a 2 min. 5 sec video posted by Frank Bauer. It’s the best explanation I’ve seen and he posted it back on Feb. 10th!
Click here for the video tutorial and please put a ton of comments on Frank’s blog and show him some love :-) Tell him I sent you. His “fluff-free” style of explaining the predicament that Google failed to announce is worth passing on.
What To Do Now: 1) Watch the VIDEO … 2) Comment and share … and as Frank says, 3) Have “an awesome day!”
Tags: alex mandossian, email marketing, frank bauer, gmail, google, harvey mackay, Info Marketing, internet marketing, Marc Harty, online marketing, productivity, Teleseminars
Please comment and share here and on Frank Bauer’s blog and then pass this on because it’s affecting thousands of online marketers.
I’m off to Singapore, so speak with you from Asia!
~ ALEX
Wow, Alex, that is crazy information! Thanks so much for staying on top of this. No doubt that this change of “rules” on what will show up as a link can/will affect our clickthrough rates big time. I will definitely make sure I keep it in my mind when I send out my Passion 101 newsletter as well as invitations to my teleseminars.
Thanks again,
Adam
Alex,
Glad you hopped on this! I have a correction to what I originally sent you.
(This is also noted in the Frank Bauer video.)
The key is that for links to be clickable in gmail, you always need to use
the www. in any link. That’s why your links for the Harvey McKay teleseminar
were not clickable.
As long as you always use the www, you can still capitalize some of the words in the domain.
The Frank Bauer video you referenced does a great job of illustrating this.
All in all, good to know as we want to make it as easy for our subscribers
to take action!
– Marc
Thanks for this information Alex, I also posted on Frank’s blog and am very grateful to be in the loop!
This is definitely crazy! I tested it myself and it doesn’t allow the links sent from 1ShoppingCart.com, but allows those types of links coming from another Free email provider such as Hotmail.
Thanks again for the info. I will definitely pass it on…
~ Layla
This is definitely CRAZY! I tested it using both my 1ShoppingCart system and directly from another account such as hotmail to gmail. It didn’t work from 1ShoppingCart system (like Marc stated), but it did work from the Free email server such as Hotmail. But we can’t be sending out mass email marketing from Hotmail anyways. Tricky Google!!!
Thanks for the info. I will definitely pass it on…
~ Layla
THANKS ALEX!!!!
Hey Buddy, It’s Greg Snead from http://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!
Maybe I’m not understanding. I just sent an e-mail to my gmail account using a link to my website in 4 ways:
www plus the domain with initial caps (it’s my name, so the initial caps were for my first and last names)
www plus the domain, all lower case
http:// with no www and initial caps
http:// with no www and all lower case
When I opened the e-mail all 4 were underlined and all four clicked through to my website.
Thanks for the heads up!
This is a valuable tip aimed at reducing the barrier to clicking on websites directly from Gmail.
Robert
Thanks so much for the great tip! Your blog posts started out at great and keep getting better and better if that is possible. I appreciate the ongoing work you put in to continue giving us the latest and greatest online info.
Columbia
Hi Alex,
Thanks for sharing my video here. :) I first recognized the problem early February 2010 and was first afraid that Google slapped my domain name… until I found out they even slapped their own if capitalized. ;)
BTW… was nice to meet you in San Francisco in person in September 2007. :)
Here is a picture from that event…
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/13PCPTtxhXDXhbQIluksZw?feat=directlink
Best regards,
Frank Bauer
Director of Add2it.com Marketing Pty Ltd
Thanks for the tip! I always use lower case www anyway so it seems to be working and clickable.
I’m with Ellen on this.
I just sent a test email to my gmail account with only my sig file:
http://www.TaxMama.com Where taxes are fun!
http://www.TaxMama.com/TaxQuips And Answers are free
http://www.IRSExams.com Become an Enrolled Agent
http://www.MarketWatch.com the TaxWatch column
It was visible. The links worked.
Hi Alex and Frank,
Great advice many thanks.
It only applies when a text-based email system sends and email to gmail.
…sends an email to gmail.
The link to video doesn’t open. Error page comes up.
Thank you for informing me! I have been leaving the “www” off on purpose, having been convinced that it was superflous, and I have taken great pains to be certain that I did “bialoegroup.net” as “BiAloeGroup.net” so that the three separate “words’ were apparent. What could POSSIBLY be the big deal that Google needed to mess us up for on that one? Google has made a hugely positive difference to the way the web supports us, but sometimes they REALLY BITE!
Yep. The link has been busted for about 3 hours.
Google, are you listening? ;-)
@Sally: Web host is already working on it. Should be back soon.
Thats for the update. :)
You’re welcome Bruce.
~ ALEX
CL,
Yes, text only. That’s the only type of email I send, so that’s why I made the post. Most of my students send only text emails as well. HTML – based is OK
~ ALEX
Yo,
D. Melvin Soh here.
Strange as it may sound ….
I am actually sitting BEHIND Alex.
Yes, LITERALLY sitting behind Alex.
You see – Alex is actually in Singapore and he’s about to speak at Harv Eker’s Guerrilla Business Intensive and I am well in charge of audio and volume so Alex is ACTUALLY sitting right in front of my sound booth.
That said, Alex actually gave me some help on sales-copy during the break which was really helpful for me.
Thanks Alex if you are reading this!
… And I am definitely going to check out the Google update.
P.S. Man, if you aren’t here in Singapore, you are missing out. Alex’s going to be on stage a lot and looking at the schedule and notes he has prepared, he’s got a ton of content-packed information to share.
I am excited…
Good catch but your testing if very incomplete.
First of all the www does not affect anything. That should not have been included here.
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.
Bet you send tracking link in your emails Alex, don’t ya?
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…..
Could it be that spammers do this allot? This could be an new anti spam move by Gmail too. What do you think Alex?
Been doing more testing, it does not affect URLs with caps in the subfolders or query strings. So tracking URLs, WordPress / blog posts all should be OK. It only seems to affect Gmail in the domain. So most links are not going to break.
Gotta be a reason for this since it does not affect Gmail outside the domain.
I just sent a link to my Buzz page on this: http://www.google.com/buzz/chrislang/Hebn6sGrzPn/Dont-use-capitalization-in-URLs-they-are-not and it did not break.
Also just emailed Tom Kulzer ask for his side of this, hope he comments here as I sent him the link…
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Alex,
Thank you for the great information.
Interesting blog you got here but I can’t seem to find the RSS button.
Hi, I often read your blog.I love it, you talk about anything from sport, news, entertainment, adult topics or just general topics. Keep up the good work. Have you ever thought about blogging for money? there is a website http://www.rustic-games.com that pays you to write articles, you would be good at it.
Hi Alex
thanks to you & Frank 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
Can you provide more information on this? greets
Alex,
Thank you so much for the information. I was about to make a great mistake. Just began marketing an Ecourse and the email links may not have worked.
Glad I am in the loop with you ;-))
Hi Frank,
Alex Mandossian sent me over to see your video. Oh my! Thank you so much for the heads up!
I was about to make a very big mistake in my latest email marketing venture.
Finally, Finally…I’ve been looking for this information for a long time. Thanks
[...] posts to read (including the comments, and further testing that people have done) can be found at Alex Mandossian’s blog and Frank Bauer’s blog . Share and [...]
Thanks from sweden for this post
Interesting reading
this bit of tech info reminds me of what I’ve been telling tons of youtubers who don’t know how to make a link in their video’s description box clickable:
if it doesn’t have the http:// as part of the URL, then it won’t be hyperlinked resulting in almost no click-thrus.
The other tip I throw in is to put the weblink first before anything else so even if the description box is not expanded (which most people don’t bother to do) , the link still shows. ;-)
superb blog and continue
Great article thx a lot!
Hi Everyone,
Coming in a little late on this one but I hope some people see this and it helps. I am a web developer (among other things) and I want to share something related to the Gmail non-clickable links. The basics are really easy to understand if you look at it this way:
Some web servers (pending on the webmaster setup) will not allow access to certain web pages without the “www” being typed into search or browser. You may have noticed this in the past yourself. So therefore when going to a site it is usually a good habit to add the www or at least remember that if you get an error or a cannot be found message then try it with the “www” in the URL.
Now I cannot say that this is why Google has made this change but it certainly falls in line with their new functionality and an effort to making the net more universal to everyone.
So the LESSON from this webmaster is simple but yet important if you are sending out mass emails for marketing, etc. ALWAYS setup your links this way (whether using a word or graphic)
http://www.yourlinkhere.com or http://www.YourLinkHere.com
*THE KEY here is “USE THE ENTIRE PATH” including “www” and the “http://”. The Caps are not the issue, we are just seeing the results based on not using the “www” and a possible fix from Google. I will certainly not pretend to understand all of Google’s wisdom it is usually a mystery to most.
As you can see this will fall into all the rules needed to comply with all networks including Google’s new method and ANY other browser or ISP rules. It is a network thing so don’t bother yourself with the “why’s” just learn to do it the BEST way and you will never have issues with “Clickability” in your email campaigns. I hope this helps you.
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