First Url in email not resolving in IE11 or Edge | Community
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Marissa_Bobitt-
Marissa_Bobitt-
New Participant
July 3, 2019
Solved

First Url in email not resolving in IE11 or Edge

  • July 3, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 3609 views

Hi All,

I have a weird issue I'm hoping someone knows how to fix or can at least point me in a new direction. The very first URL after the "view on web" URL is resolving with http://// (yes four forward slashes) and is understandably not working. 

On Chrome and Firefox the link is resolving correctly with https://. Now I have the exact same link at the bottom in the footer and it's resolving just fine. 

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks, in advance!

Best answer by SanfordWhiteman

The first link definitely has all 4 slashes before IE sees it -- so consistent with what I was saying above, IE just enforces the URL standard more strictly, it's not wrong.

This is the URL that underlies the first tracked link for all browsers.

In the footer version, there are only 2 slashes:

Note that the first has been defaulted to http, the second is https. This suggests really strongly that there's a typo in the first.

I will say that you shouldn't be using protocol-relative URLs (beginning with //) in email links, as they don't make sense. Relative URLs implicitly create the final URL by prepending the protocol of the mail client that's reading the email, but not all mail clients have a protocol! My Inbox isn't on the web, so it doesn't have a protocol... // has no meaning there. 

It's only by luck that Marketo tries (and doesn't necessarily succeed) to fix up the relative URL to an absolute URL if it gets rewritten for tracking. If you avoid protocol-relative URLs you avoid a raft of possible problems.

3 replies

Marissa_Bobitt-
Marissa_Bobitt-Author
New Participant
July 3, 2019

Hi Sanford Whiteman,

Wow, thanks for the quick reply! Below is both the template URL and the final email URL. 

//ceb.com?utm_source=${utm-source}&utm_medium=${utm-medium}&utm_campaign=${utm-campaign}&utm_term=${utm-term}&utm_content=${utm-content}


To:
http://email.ceb.com/dc/VL1WOZSJjyyoip4xSwDsA4OHPHUJMVpRrMKtXV9tteIcW0Xuh8v68ehiWnMYMDKJD6gGD5HJ0X8hA2tFrGJotcjhV3XZUsmeVvAJBMTzznLjmnk1Hejmr33pDk0boMYdOr_3r2p9225PVfITRuzodg==/Az0J00NU10sb10000h0K00N

I have tried removing the forward slashes on the template version but IE still resolved with all four. Also below here is the same link and the email URL for the logo in our footer of the same template. 

//ceb.com?utm_source=${utm-source}&utm_medium=${utm-medium}&utm_campaign=${utm-campaign}&utm_term=${utm-term}&utm_content=${utm-content}


To:
http://email.ceb.com/dc/zIpQon1bPOJCF_3e4tahbZWSiQHsEiC_m96Xvt0tmVWlJwLgUHaDopxcCbb4zKeZCxczSzFNCYJzXtJJWSdMadN2CLHV1qCoqDr-sjgYuTI8sg0uZUBH_fjd0yeVqikYo284Jzv29kgxczpQtYVOQQ==/Az0J00NU10sb10000h0K00N

I'm really hoping I'm just not seeing a typo as I can't replicate this issue on any of our other templates that use the same header.

Thanks Again!

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhitemanAccepted solution
New Participant
July 3, 2019

The first link definitely has all 4 slashes before IE sees it -- so consistent with what I was saying above, IE just enforces the URL standard more strictly, it's not wrong.

This is the URL that underlies the first tracked link for all browsers.

In the footer version, there are only 2 slashes:

Note that the first has been defaulted to http, the second is https. This suggests really strongly that there's a typo in the first.

I will say that you shouldn't be using protocol-relative URLs (beginning with //) in email links, as they don't make sense. Relative URLs implicitly create the final URL by prepending the protocol of the mail client that's reading the email, but not all mail clients have a protocol! My Inbox isn't on the web, so it doesn't have a protocol... // has no meaning there. 

It's only by luck that Marketo tries (and doesn't necessarily succeed) to fix up the relative URL to an absolute URL if it gets rewritten for tracking. If you avoid protocol-relative URLs you avoid a raft of possible problems.

Marissa_Bobitt-
Marissa_Bobitt-Author
New Participant
July 3, 2019

Ah!

I always felt a little squishy about removing those protocols. Ok, I've added the full https:// protocol (and all the others that were removed) and that looks to have fixed the issue.

For clarification should I only worry about removing the protocol for tokens then? I know it's a best practice for something but it's usually not followed by a very clear reason. 

Thanks again, @Sanford Whiteman. Your definitely a national treasure in this community. 

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
New Participant
July 3, 2019

@Marissa Bobitt-Gonzales‌ if you still want help with this, pls check the update above.

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
New Participant
July 3, 2019

Please provide a sample of the tracked URL (the URL in the real email as seen in the Inbox).

I have a feeling this isn't IE being wrong but being less lenient about a bad URL you added to your email.

EDIT: I'm even more certain now (this whole "////" thing rang a bell) that IE isn't doing anything wrong, it's simply correctly observing the URL standard. However, I can't replicate this behavior in Edge 14-18, suggesting that Edge developers decided to bite the bullet and act like FF/Chrome, even though they weren't obligated to.

A page with this one line of JS:

document.location.href = "https:////example.com";‍‍

Redirects like this in representative browsers:

FF 66:

Chrome 70:

Safari 11:

IE 10:

IE 11:

Edge 18:

Hence an error in entering the URL in Marketo (with the 4 slashes) will not surface as an error in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge but it still is an error. It's only IE which correctly calls it.

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