Permalinks

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  twelvehousebooks · Member · Jul 9, 2022 at 4:20 pm

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  My links to external sites don’t work. I have checked for PERMALINKS, and I don’t have that part of the wordpress site. Is this because I use the FREE service?

  WP.com: Yes
  Correct account: Yes

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

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  twelvehousebooks · Member · Jul 9, 2022 at 4:41 pm

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  All other external links on my site work and take the reader to the site, but external links to Barnes & Noble books result in a 404 error code. I have looked for the Permalinks tab on my site, but there isn’t one.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 9, 2022 at 4:51 pm

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  Hi there,

  Permalink settings control how internal links for your site are structured, so they won’t have any effect at all on how external links work. Those settings aren’t available on WordPress.com sites.

  but external links to Barnes & Noble books result in a 404 error code

  Can you tell me where on your site these links appear, and the URL(s) it’s supposed to go to?

  A 404 error means you’re linking to a URL that doesn’t exist, so there’s likely an error in the URL you typed/pasted in when creating the link.

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  twelvehousebooks · Member · Jul 9, 2022 at 4:58 pm

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  Hi.

  The links are attached to the images here https://twelvehousebooks.wordpress.com/twelve-house-bookstore/

  When I click any of the posted images, I am taken directly to Barnes & Noble. But when anyone else clicks, using a desktop, laptop, or cell phone, they invariably get a 404 error.

  This is obviously damaging to my business as a book publisher, but I have no idea what to do about the problem.

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  twelvehousebooks · Member · Jul 9, 2022 at 5:02 pm

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  Here is the URL for the first posted book, Children & Their Cages. It is the one I used to set up the external link for the book.

  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-their-cages-evan-james-sheldon/1141669651?ean=9798765582343/

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 9, 2022 at 5:34 pm

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  Thanks.

  Those links all work fine for me (I checked in different browsers, logged into and out of WordPress.com), taking me to the B&N website, and for one to Amazon. So the problem is not with the links or your site.

  That means the problem is likely with the browsers of the people this is happening to – if the browser is somehow altering the URL, stripping out or converting characters in the URL, that would explain folks landing on a 404 page.

  But that means it’s unfortunately not something we’re able to help with from our end :)

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  twelvehousebooks · Member · Jul 9, 2022 at 6:00 pm

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  Such a relief. Thank you so much for your time and expertise.