Dirty Links vs. Clean Links
Nah! Not that kind of dirty! In the world of the internet, sometimes less is a whole lot more. We’re going to show you how to clean links before you send them, so that from now on, you only send clean links.
When you’re sharing an interesting story or a helpful tip with a friend, you probably just copy the address from your browser and paste it into an email. But have you ever noticed that some links look like a short sentence, while others look like an entire paragraph of gibberish, numbers, and percentage signs?
The difference between a Clean Link and a Dirty Link
What is a “Dirty Link”?
A dirty link is a URL that has been “salted” with tracking data. Companies use this to follow you around. They want to know your subscriber ID, which email campaign you clicked on, and what “medium” you used to get there. It’s all about marketing and analytics.
Take a look at this monstrosity:
Everything after that /? is just “noise.” It’s all that personal tracking data that makes the link look suspicious, cluttered, and—frankly—unprofessional.
The Power of the “Clean Link”
A clean link is the “just the facts, ma’am” version. It’s the direct path to the content without all the garbage. It’s shorter, it’s easier to read, and it doesn’t set off “scam” alarm bells in your friends’ heads.
The same page as the link above can be reached with this:
How to Clean Links
It’s a simple trick that will make you look like a pro. Before you hit “send” on that email:
Look for the Question Mark!
Most tracking data starts with a ? or a /?. (Or sometimes a /ref=).
Highlight the Junk
Select everything from the question mark to the very end of the link and hit Delete!
By removing all of that personal/subscription tracking data, you’re making your links cleaner, your emails a lot more friendly, and the links you send more likely to be clicked.
Think about it? Which link are you more likely to click? The dirty link or the clean link?
But wait, there’s more!
If you want to do this automatically, Firefox has a built-in “Clean Link” feature. For Edge and Chrome (and other Chromium-based browsers like Brave), you can install a browser extension to do the work for you. Here are a couple.
Thanks…D