HTML Pro: How to prevent automatic links

Email clients automatically add links to certain keywords. This can happen to the following kinds of text:

  • URLs (www.xink.io, https://www.xink.io/)
  • email addresses (support@xink.io)
  • phone numbers 
  • mailing addresses
  • dates
  • flight numbers

The problem is that if we don’t plan for them, these links will come up with their default styles (usually blue and underlined) — and this can create undesirable branding effects. 

Here are two possible ways to avoid automatic links:

  1. Use a zero-width non-joiner character. A zero-width non-joiner is an invisible character represented by the entity ‌ (or ͏) in the HTML source in the middle of text where a link might be added:
    Visit www.xink‌.io for more details!
  2. Add a link ourselves. Email clients are clever enough not to try to add a link to text that’s already linked. So if we add a link ourselves around text that we know might get automatically linked, we can apply our own styles > Learn more in this guide.





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