Email followers receiving unavailable links

  • Unknown's avatar
    krorene · Member ·

    For the past two posts I’ve published, my email followers have been receiving ‘dead’ links. Essentially, they receive the regular email notification that a new post is live, including a snapshot of the post, but when they click the link to go to the full page, it says the page is not available. This is weird because you can still access the page through the address bar. The blog I’m working with is plentyofpopcorn.wordpress.com.
    Hope you can help!!

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    jesscga · Member ·

    Hi!

    It sounds like there might be a problem with how the emailed link is being generated. I can see that the links to your posts work fine from the Reader.

    Would you be able to post an example of a link that a follower receives? From the email, you would right-click and select “Copy link address” and then paste it here.

    I’m also going to tag thread this for staff assistance so that they can follow up with you as well.

  • Unknown's avatar
    krorene · Member ·

    Hi Jesscga!

    It is the weirdest thing… the link they receive by email (the one generated at the bottom of the message if the “read more” button isn’t doing the job) is: https://plentyofpopcorn.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/rough-night/

    This looks like the right address for the post and, sure enough, in my browser it takes me right to the page. But I’ve had two followers say it’s just not connecting through their emails. What kind of gremlins are these?

    Thanks for the help and the staff tag!

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Hi folks, that’s an odd issue! @krorene, would you ask your followers if the link now works?

    If it doesn’t, can you have one of them send the link they received?

    Also, typically when I’ve seen something like this, someone published a post early by accident then set it back to draft while they finished working on it. Folks who clicked on the email link while it was in draft status got a “not found” link. Could that have happened here, too?

  • Unknown's avatar
    krorene · Member ·

    Just checked and the email link is now working for my followers! I’m not sure what the issue was, since I scheduled the post a few days in advance and never put it in draft mode. Plus, this happened two weeks in a row. It looks like time fixed the problem…?

    Thanks for all the helpful advice!

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    @krorene I wonder if there’s a scheduling problem then. Are these folks who have trouble the ones who are clicking the link the soonest?

    Would you be able to watch for your email and click the link yourself to see if it works for you?

  • Unknown's avatar
    krorene · Member ·

    I will try signing myself up for email alerts and see what happens next Wednesday when the next post is published. These followers are fairly quick to click on the email link, but it would still be a minimum 2 hours after the post has gone live.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    @krorene okay. If you’ll test the link that will help. Please also check the link in an incognito window, too, so you can see how it looks when you’re not logged in. Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    jesscga · Member ·

    I signed up for email alerts from the site as well, so I’ll report back on what happens from my end.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Thanks @jesscga, I’ve tried that once too and found it’s easiest if you know when the posts are going to go out. But if you happen to catch one this way, let me know.

  • Unknown's avatar
    jesscga · Member ·

    Just following up that I received an email alert and clicked through to the post without problems. :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    krorene · Member ·

    And my followers confirmed that their links worked too! I don’t know what happened over the last two weeks, but it seems to have fixed itself. Thank you all for your help!!

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